


still on that tightrope

by saysthemagpie



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Angst, Fertility Issues, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Past Heartbreak, Pining, Shame, Trope Subversion, how we begin to forgive ourselves & others, the painful nonsense of inhabiting a gendered body
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:54:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28311942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saysthemagpie/pseuds/saysthemagpie
Summary: Sid would leave him. Not yet, maybe, but Zhenya had gone into this clear-eyed. He wasn’t twenty years old anymore, buoyant with hope, blinded by his own naivety. For Sid—for any alpha, really—Zhenya was the interlude, not the finale. There would always be another Kathy waiting in the wings.He wouldn’t try to change Sid’s mind, not this time. But maybe there was still a chance that he could change himself.
Relationships: Sidney Crosby/Evgeni Malkin
Comments: 43
Kudos: 222
Collections: Author's Faves, Sid Geno ABO Fest





	still on that tightrope

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for a prompt that went something like this: "Geno's an omega who’s never gone into heat. he's fine with this though!" I LOVED the premise, but because I am an angst gremlin who thrives on suffering, I chopped off the second part and combined the concept with my feelings about this [slightly devastating 2019 interview with Geno](https://theathletic.com/1192049/2019/09/10/evgeni-malkin-trade-rumors-penguins-moscow-russia-hockey/). 
> 
> One key detail: betas do not exist as a distinct, socially recognized gender in this universe. I've also put some slightly spoilery content warnings in the notes at the end. 
> 
> I need a lot of hand-holding when I write, so I owe many thanks to everyone who obliged me. meghan read an early outline and helped me figure out that this was really a fic about shame. sacha read MANY versions over the past few weeks—her encouragement was desperately needed and her keen beta's eye made this story so much more coherent. sasha (with an S!) swooped in to do a gut-check "does this even WORK" read for me of the almost-full draft. and as always: one million thanks to my sister, who dragged me kicking and screaming to a conclusion, and took a break from med school studying to suggest handwavey but semi-plausible scientific explanations for various aspects of a/o biology in this world. 
> 
> title is from tswift's "mirrorball," but the real emotional soundtrack for this fic is julien baker's _turn out the lights_.

Zhenya pulled into the lot at eight exactly—fifteen minutes early, even after he’d circled the place a few times. The building was one of those complexes that rented space to half a dozen small businesses, so blandly nondescript it somehow circled back round to seeming suspicious. There might as well have been a sign out front: _nothing important happens here._

It was possible he had watched too many gangster films. Zhenya checked the rearview mirror again and pulled his toque a little further down over his eyes. 

The waiting room was empty apart from the receptionist, who slid back the glass and looked at him expectantly. 

“I have appointment,” he said, fumbling the words a little. 

“Have a seat and fill out the paperwork,” she said, in a bored voice. “He’ll be with you in a moment.” 

The glass slid shut. 

Zhenya took the seat nearest the door and began the laborious process of deciphering the forms. He filled out the medical history in part, leaving out most of his past injuries—no need to make himself any more identifiable. The waiver he barely bothered to skim: too much unfamiliar English. Besides, he already knew what it said. It wasn’t their fault if they couldn’t fix him. If he got hurt in the process, he had only himself to blame. 

When he was finished he put the clipboard aside and scrolled through his email inbox. There was a proposal from his agent to review, for a possible sponsorship deal in the offseason. Sid had forwarded their flight itinerary: of course he’d already checked them in, probably the second the clock ticked over. Last was a long chatty email from his mother, with a photo of his father holding the neighbor’s new baby attached. _We miss you, love._

He marked that one unread, with a pang of guilt. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d called home.

A door opened. A small, harried-looking man stuck his head out. 

“Eugene?” he said. 

In the exam room Zhenya sat on the table and waited, studying the doctor surreptitiously as he flipped through his paperwork. They had spoken over the phone, but the man had been tight-lipped, reluctant to go into detail. Zhenya, never confident with English phone calls, had been too tongue-tied to press further. 

The doctor sighed as he read, tapping his pen against his teeth. Finally he looked up. 

“You realize you’re well outside the target age range,” he said. “We see the highest success rates when treatment is administered within two years of the first missed cycle, usually at fifteen or sixteen.” 

Zhenya cleared his throat. “I’m not here then,” he said. “In my country, doctor say—wait, wait. Maybe it’s fix later, when I’m older.” 

The doctor gave him a skeptical look. “You didn’t think to visit a heat specialist?” 

There had never been enough money, even with Metallurg covering most of his equipment and training fees. His parents had done the best they could for him: his mother trading shifts at work to sit with him in local clinics, appointments fit in whenever he could get an hour off from practice, a day away from the team. 

“I try when I come here,” Zhenya said. “Try pills, shots. Nothing works.”

Every American doctor he’d seen had told him the same thing: the window for successful intervention was almost certainly closed, his fate sealed before he’d even set foot on American soil. But it hadn’t stopped him from hoping. It had seemed ludicrous that there would be no solution, no magic bullet. He was rich. What problem in America couldn’t be solved with money? 

“Well, it’s certainly not ideal.” The doctor looked at Zhenya with some distaste, as if he suspected Zhenya had arranged his life to personally inconvenience him. 

Zhenya looked down at his shoes. The guy was probably five-seven, a hundred sixty pounds soaking wet. On the ice Zhenya could crush him like an insect. Here, he said, “Sorry.” 

“You understand that at your age, there’s no guarantee that a heat cycle will enable you to bear children.” 

Gloves dropped. Refs circling. He’d put him in a headlock first—immobilize him—both of them cursing, spitting. It would be a pleasure to sink his fist into that smug face. Zhenya could almost hear the satisfying crunch of bone. 

He cleared his throat. “But can bond?” 

“If the injections successfully induce a heat cycle, then yes, there’s no reason why you wouldn’t be able to form a mate-bond.” 

Zhenya’s heart beat faster. “Then I want,” he said. “I bring money, like you say. You give today?” 

“We’ll need to do a full workup first, to check for certain markers,” the doctor said. “And the injections are typically administered over the course of two or three appointments.” 

Zhenya pulled out the envelope. He opened it to show the thick stacks of bills inside. 

“You say ten,” he said. “I bring twenty, if you do today.” 

The doctor visibly hesitated. 

“There are certain risks.” He eyed the envelope. “But you’ve signed the liability waiver, of course. You’re aware of the possible adverse effects. Very rare, of course, but—”

“Yes, I know,” Zhenya said impatiently. None of it seemed all that important. Without a heat cycle he couldn’t have children anyway, so long-term damage to his fertility was hardly a concern. “So you do?” 

The needleprick stung. Zhenya kept his gaze fixed on the wall opposite. When it was finished he put his sweatshirt back on, and his jacket. The doctor took the envelope and left without another word. Zhenya sat there awkwardly for a moment, wondering if it was finished, before the bored-looking receptionist came in. 

“Take one in the morning, on an empty stomach,” she said, handing Zhenya an unmarked bottle of pills. “Don’t exceed the suggested dose.” 

He looked at it dubiously. “What is?” 

“Just something to help boost the effectiveness of the injections,” she said. “Results usually present in two to four days. Call us if you experience adverse reactions. Dizziness, shortness of breath, confusion—anything that feels out of the ordinary.” 

Zhenya nodded, slipping the pills into his jacket pocket. She turned, then looked back at him, her gaze suddenly sharp. For a second he thought she had recognized him. But all she said was, “Good luck.” 

He took the stairs instead of waiting for the elevator. It was raining again, a cold steady drizzle that would freeze overnight. Zhenya couldn’t remember a bleaker winter. Even snow would’ve been preferable—anything but the awful sodden damp, the feeling that he’d never be warm and dry again. 

In the parking lot he sat in his car for a minute before starting the engine. He looked out through the rain-blurred glass: breathing in, breathing out. 

It was out of his hands now. He’d know, one way or the other. That was what he had wanted.

*

He was late for tape review. Sullivan looked up when he came in but didn’t comment, just held his gaze a moment and looked away, frowning. Zhenya ducked his head and took a seat in the back. 

“Late night?” Phil muttered, and Zhenya bared his teeth in a silent snarl. Phil just huffed out a laugh, leaning forward in his chair. 

They’d managed to eke out a win the previous night, but barely. Zhenya hadn’t put up a single point, though he’d spent four minutes in the penalty box—cursing, half blinded by rage, heart pounding so hard in his ears it almost drowned out the crowd’s jeering. 

He tuned out Sullivan’s commentary. It wasn’t like he needed someone to tell him what had gone wrong. Lately it felt like the images played on a loop in his brain every night before bed—every careless turnover, every bad line change, every time he was too slow on his skates to be where his linemates needed him.

Sid was sitting in the front row. His hair was getting long; Zhenya could see where it was beginning to curl a little at the nape of his neck. He could picture the expression on Sid’s face with perfect clarity: absorbed and serious, forehead creased a little with concern. 

It was a closed practice. Despite the gloom outside, the energy in the rink was loose and relaxed. Most players scheduled their spring cycles for bye-week and started tapering off their suppressants a few days before. By the Friday before bye-week hormones were always running high—everybody amped up and restless, the younger alphas posturing for the omegas, showing off. Sid looked half exasperated, half amused, rolling his eyes and laughing as one of the rookies deked past him to score on Muzz for the second time. 

In the locker rooms after, everybody was in a good mood, laughing and chirping each other, discussing their plans. Even after years in the States, it still sometimes shocked Zhenya how frankly North Americans discussed their cycles. Here it was something to boast about, proof of one’s virility. 

“Jesus, you reek,” Teddy complained. “Getting started early, Reeser?” 

“He’s got a big week ahead of him,” someone called out. “Gonna make an honest alpha out of his girl.” 

“What, seriously? That’s great, man.” 

“We were gonna wait,” Zach said, ducking his head. “But it just—it feels right, you know?” 

“Our boy’s all grown up,” Rusty crowed, wrestling him into a headlock. There was a round of wolf whistles and cheering. 

Zhenya sat in his stall and began to strip off his gear. Nobody would ask him what his plans were. He knew it wasn’t pointed—probably his teammates meant it as a kindness, or a gesture of respect. Zhenya’s mother tongue had few words for his condition: if such problems existed, it was better not to speak of them. But English had plenty of words for omegas like Zhenya. He had learned most of them on the ice. 

Frigid. Stunted. _Spayed._

“What about you, Sid?” Phil asked suddenly, raising his voice a little to be heard across the room. “Got big plans?” 

The locker room went—not quiet, exactly, but quieter. Sid had never formally announced his breakup with Kathy, but the news had filtered slowly through the room over the past several months. Still, it wasn’t the kind of thing people addressed directly: everyone knew Sid kept things close to the chest.

If Sid registered the tension, he didn’t show it. “Not this year,” he said. “Thought it might be nice to actually do something with the week, you know? See the outside of a bedroom.” 

He didn’t look Zhenya’s way. It got a laugh from the room, though, and soon enough the team’s attention had shifted back to chirping Zach about his upcoming week, and the bonding ceremony everyone would demand to be invited to. Zhenya decided, abruptly, that he would shower at home. 

His escape was foiled. Sullivan was waiting for him outside the changing room. 

“Geno,” he said. “A word?” 

Zhenya trailed after him into his office. He stood there, shifting his bag over his shoulder, hoping that if he didn’t sit down this would be over with quickly. 

“I’m late,” he said. “I know. It’s traffic.” 

Sullivan sat down behind his desk. He looked pointedly at the chair across from him, until finally Zhenya moved over to it and sat down. 

“Geno,” Sullivan said. “I didn’t call you in here to lecture you about the importance of showing up to work on time. I think you know perfectly well how that looks to every other member of this team.” 

So it was going to be that kind of talk. Zhenya shifted in his seat. 

“Help me understand,” Sullivan said. “Because I think I’m missing something here, G. You’re distracted, you’re moody, you’re making bad decisions on the ice. Something’s eating away at you, and it’s impacting every aspect of your performance.” 

Zhenya picked at the cuff of his sweatshirt. “It’s bad month,” he said, though they both knew it had been longer than that. Since November, if he was honest with himself. Since Sid had kissed him in the showers after a late practice, everyone else long gone. 

_I missed this. Fuck, Geno. I missed this so much._

There wasn’t a chance in hell he was telling his coach that. He tried to think of what Sullivan wanted to hear. 

“I’m just like—little bit tired, little bit angry,” he said. “I don’t sleep good, make dumb mistake, get mad.”

There was a silence. Finally, Sullivan sighed. 

“Geno, you’re one of the best players in this league. You’re a leader in that room. But right now, you’re not acting like you understand that.” 

Zhenya flushed. He opened his mouth to retort, but Sullivan held up a hand. 

“Don’t,” he said. “When you get angry, you stop thinking. And right now I need you to think. I want you to take some time this week to reflect on what you want your future with this team to look like. I don’t know what’s going on in your head, and it seems like you’re not inclined to tell me. But whatever it is, I need you to figure it out.”

Zhenya exhaled through his nose. Well: he was planning to, wasn’t he? 

“Yes, okay,” he said. “I spend this week. I figure out.” 

Sullivan looked a little surprised, like maybe he’d expected more resistance. He leaned back in his chair and studied Zhenya for a moment.

“Good,” he said. “We’ll see you next week. Get some sleep, get some sun. Do whatever you need to do to get your head on straight.” 

*

Sid was lurking down the hall from the coaches’ offices, doing an unconvincing imitation of someone who just happened to be in the neighborhood. Zhenya was in no mood to talk to him: his heart was pounding still, his face hot with anger. For a moment he considered turning around and escaping out the back exit before Sid saw him. 

But what good would it do? He couldn’t avoid Sid forever. He shouldered his bag, took a steadying breath, and walked towards him. 

“Oh,” Sid said, looking up from the placard he was studying. “Hey, G.” 

“Sid,” Zhenya said flatly. 

Sid fell into step beside him, walking a little faster to keep up. “You should come over tonight.” 

Zhenya snorted. “What, can’t yell here?” 

“That’s not—I’m not going to yell at you,” Sid said, looking a little surprised. “I thought we could have dinner.” 

Zhenya shot him a sidelong glance. “You cook?” 

“Well, I was gonna try.” Sid grinned at him, eyes crinkling up at the corners. “You’re pretty picky, though.” 

“Have taste,” Zhenya scoffed. 

“I’ll make that pasta you like,” Sid said. “We can watch the Rangers game.” 

He looked hopeful. Zhenya felt sour still, and he suspected Sid was just buttering him up now so he could lecture him about commitment and leadership later. But the pasta _was_ good, the best meal in Sid’s four-dish repertoire, and the lecture would come eventually, whether he wanted it to or not. He might as well get dinner out of it. 

“Fine,” he said. “I come at seven.” 

They had reached the atrium. It was still coming down outside, and the sky was so gloomy it might as well have been night. 

“You could stay over, if you wanted,” Sid said, stopping. He was smiling still, but there was a note of uncertainty in his voice. “Save us time in the morning, eh? It’s an early flight.” 

It was bullshit: Zhenya’s house was five minutes out of Sid’s way, and Sid would get them to the airport two hours early even if he had to pick Zhenya up from the city of Philadelphia. 

Zhenya never stayed the night, and Sid had never asked him to. Part of him—the ungenerous part, the embittered part—had wondered if Sid even noticed, or cared. 

His arm was starting to ache: a dull, throbbing pain deep in the muscle.

“Maybe,” he said. “We see.” 

*

He went home and took a long nap, waking in the late afternoon from a dream that slipped through his fingers as soon as he opened his eyes. There were chores to be done, so he did them: folding the laundry, emptying the dishwasher, sorting through the fridge to throw out anything that might spoil in a week away. He kept the television on in the background, white noise to drown out his thoughts. 

Finally, when there was nothing left to fuss over, he sat down on the sofa with his laptop. 

There were no new posts in the forum. Zhenya scrolled back through old threads until he found the one he was looking for: a list of phone numbers, annotated with notes from dozens of anonymous users. The comments were full of advice—say this; don’t say that. This one would give you the shots if you cried in her office. That one would give you pills, if you paid in cash. 

He scrolled down to the comment box. _I get shot today_ , he typed out. Within minutes there was a string of comments beneath his post: 

_good luck!!_

_hope it works bud_

_fuck man ur sooo lucky_ 😢 

He had stumbled across the site years ago, during one of his furtive late night Googling sessions. He rarely posted, but he used to read it pretty often, even back when his English was so shaky it took ages to decipher even the simplest sentences. 

It wasn’t the kind of thing people spoke about back home. Everyone knew he was scent-blind, of course: you couldn’t hide it for long. But that happened sometimes—the result of a childhood illness, or just genetic bad luck. People pitied you for it, but on the ice it sometimes worked out to be an advantage: fewer distractions to tune out. 

But to never have had a heat? To be stunted like that—scentless and scent-blind, barely an omega at all? Zhenya had never heard of such a thing, before he came to America. Nor had his parents, or the doctor who advised them to wait and see, even as his friends and teammates presented around him: alpha, omega, alpha, alpha, their scents changing and intensifying, maturing as they came of age. 

His parents never spoke of it outside the clinic, as if what happened in that cramped exam room existed in a totally separate world. The only allusion he could remember anyone making to it was the artificial pheromone spray that appeared on his bedside table when he turned sixteen. It was expensive, and he was supposed to use it sparingly, but as a teenager he used to douse himself in it, until one of the assistant coaches—some former hotshot who’d flamed out with a knee injury—cracked a joke about it at practice, and everyone laughed. 

His heat had never come. Not at thirteen, as was typical; or at fourteen, or fifteen, long after even the latest bloomers in his class had presented. His scent had never changed. 

Zhenya had asked Sasha, once, what he smelled like. Sasha had been weird about it at first, not wanting to say, and then finally he’d said: “It’s not bad, Zhenya. It’s just—not really there, you know?”

*

He drove over to Sid’s with his suitcase in the back and let himself in the unlocked front door. The house was dark except for the kitchen, light spilling down the long hallway. 

Sid was chopping vegetables at the island, a pot of water bubbling on the stove. When Zhenya came in he looked up and smiled, and Zhenya felt something loosen in his chest. 

“Hey, G,” Sid said. “You hungry?” 

“I’m starve,” he groaned, pulling a dramatic face, and Sid laughed and said, “I put some snacks out.” 

Zhenya went over to the kitchen island to inspect the tray. All his favorites: soft cheese and little foil-wrapped chocolates and strawberries with the tops sliced off.

“There’s wine, too,” Sid said, and Zhenya made an approving noise. He poured himself a generous glass—it was bye week; he was allowed—and sat down at the bar to watch Sid cook. He felt unsettled still, jittery with nerves. 

“What,” Sid said, looking at him closely. 

“Nothing,” Zhenya said. “What?” 

“You just seem—” Sid stopped, shaking his head. “Never mind. Here, put the salad out.” 

They ate at the kitchen table instead of their usual spots in the den. Sid had even set the table, as if he were expecting guests. 

Zhenya raised his eyebrows. “Fancy.” 

Sid ducked his head. “I just thought, it’s our week off. Maybe we should, you know—have a real dinner. Take some time away from hockey.” 

Zhenya gave him an incredulous look. “Sid, you feel okay? Maybe aliens come, kidnap?”

“Oh, shut up,” Sid said, rolling his eyes. “Bring the wine over.” 

The pasta was good. Sid had even put out the mayonnaise, though he made a face when Zhenya dressed his salad liberally with it, as God intended. 

“That’s still disgusting, you know,” he said. 

“ _Haute cuisine_ ,” Zhenya said, pronouncing the phrase carefully. He had picked it up from one of the cooking shows Sid watched sometimes, and liked to use it whenever Sid acted horrified by his superior culinary instincts. “It’s okay, Sid. I know you sad Canadian, not know good food. You can’t help.”

Sid rolled his eyes and helped himself to seconds. They ate in companionable silence, listening to the sound of the rain falling in soft sheets outside. 

Zhenya knew Sid must be curious about the meeting with Sullivan, and was surprised, and a little suspicious, that he hadn’t yet asked. He could tell it worried Sid: Zhenya’s bad season, and the growing tensions with the coaching staff. Lately it seemed to be weighing more heavily on him—a sense of responsibility; an uncertainty about how to fix it. Every time they were alone together, Sid seemed to be on the verge of bringing it up, and then, for whatever reason, didn’t. 

If he was waiting for Zhenya to initiate the conversation, he would be waiting a long time. 

After dinner Sid packed the leftovers for the plane, while Zhenya rinsed the plates and stacked them on the counter. The dishwasher, he had learned, was Sid’s sovereign territory: if Zhenya put anything into it, Sid would take it out and rearrange it according to some mysterious and inviolable system of organization he refused to impart to Zhenya. 

In the den Sid sat closer than Zhenya expected—close enough their knees could touch, if Zhenya let his legs splay a little wider—and proceeded to talk through the entire second and third periods, an uninterrupted monologue that required little input from Zhenya. It was soothing in its familiarity: Zhenya wasn’t sure Sid had ever experienced a sporting event without analyzing it like he was being paid to provide color commentary. At least on the sofa it wasn’t Zhenya’s lackluster play he was dissecting. 

Not that Sid had been lecturing him much these past few weeks. Somehow that was worse: Sid being careful with him, when he never had been before. Like he knew it wouldn’t make a difference, maybe. Like maybe Zhenya wasn’t worth the effort. 

He forced himself to pay attention to the game, so he could offer some commentary of his own. 

“What do you think?” Sid said when the postgame interviews began. “You could, uh—there’s always the guest room, if you’d rather.” 

Zhenya made a noncommittal noise, but when Sid turned off the TV he trailed after him. At the top of the stairs he turned left instead of right, following Sid into the master suite. 

Sid turned towards him. He stepped closer and touched Zhenya’s wrist, the pressure light. 

“Yeah?” he said softly. 

Zhenya didn’t see why they had to discuss it. But lately Sid seemed to always be asking, like he was determined to make Zhenya say it aloud. 

“Yes, okay,” he said, and closed the distance between them, pressing his mouth to Sid’s. 

* 

After, he lay awake for a long time, unable to fall asleep. Sid had forgotten to open the blackout curtains, and the darkness in the room was total. Zhenya might have been sunk in the bowels of some subterranean cave, or underwater, fathoms deep, night closing over his head. He shut his eyes and opened them again, looking for some pinprick of light. 

He didn’t like hooking up in Sid’s room. Some part of him still thought of it as Sid and Kathy’s: the master suite a real couple’s bedroom, tastefully decorated; the California king a real couple’s bed. It was nothing like the old sagging sofa in the Lemieuxs’ guest house, or the featureless hotel rooms they used to fool around in—hurried fumblings before Nathalie got home, or their road roommates came back. 

That first night in November, he had said yes before he could think about it, had let Sid take him home, to this bed. Afterwards he’d lain awake like this, feeling everything all at once: his heart fluttering in his chest like a terrified thing, beating its wings against the bars of his ribs. He had gathered his clothes and left before the sun rose, walking home through the freezing dark. Since then the act of leaving had come to feel like a pregame ritual, almost—a talisman against misfortune, its protections shaky but better than nothing. 

But now—

Zhenya rolled over onto his side, facing the wall, and curled in on himself. He was full of doubts and fears, but it was the hope that was killing him, a queasy anticipation that felt like heartburn. He wondered what the change would feel like, if it came. Would heat feel alien to him, or would he register it as natural: a slow instinctive awakening, a coming home to his body? 

Or would Sid sense it first? Would he look at Zhenya—across the breakfast table, maybe, or out by the pool—and _know_?

He felt flushed all over, thinking of it. He burrowed deeper under the blankets and touched his mouth with his fingertips, imagining the look on Sid’s face: his eyes dark with desire, his expression hungry. They would both feel the shift in the air, a new horizon opening up before them. 

Everything would be different then. Anything might be possible.

*

The flight was early enough that the airport was mostly deserted. Sid still got recognized, though, and had to stop to sign autographs and take a couple of selfies. Zhenya ducked away before anyone could pull him in. He didn’t have Sid’s inexhaustible reserves of Canadian politeness, and was too grumpy at being up early to make small talk in English. 

Besides, he knew what they were saying about him this year—he’d developed an unfortunate habit of scrolling through Twitter after games, just to press at the bruise. 

When he came out of the restroom Sid was standing by their bags, talking with a young blond omega. Zhenya could read it in the way she looked at Sid: flicking her gaze down and back up, tilting her head to expose her neck a little when she laughed. Sid was being perfectly polite, as always. Focused and attentive. Smiling. 

Zhenya ducked back into the bathroom. He washed his hands again, for something to do, and looked at himself in the mirror. His face was still puffy from sleep, dark circles under his eyes. He looked tired, and old—or close to it; closing in on it. 

When he was younger, it had seemed very far away—the part of his life that came after hockey. Some part of him still believed that his body would work itself out, eventually. But it had never happened, no matter how long he waited for his body to wake up, no matter how many checks he wrote to doctors and snake oil salesmen promising magical cures. Everything he’d tried had failed. 

Sid would leave him. Not yet, maybe, but Zhenya had gone into this clear-eyed. He wasn’t twenty years old anymore, buoyant with hope and blinded by his own naivety. For Sid—for any alpha, really—Zhenya was the interlude, not the finale. There would always be another Kathy waiting in the wings. 

He wouldn’t try to change Sid’s mind, not this time. But maybe there was still a chance that he could change himself. 

*

He slept most of the flight, and woke up with his head resting on Sid’s shoulder, a little bit of drool in the corner of his mouth.

“I snore?” he said. 

“Like a freight train,” Sid said, but he was smiling, so Zhenya thought he was probably joking. 

The warmth hit him as soon as the sliding glass doors opened. God, he loved Miami: it was always some variant of summer here. He felt better already, and lighter, a thousand-odd miles between him and the endless gloom of Pennsylvania winter. Zhenya had never disliked Pittsburgh before, but in the last couple months he had come close, at times, to hating it. The city had never seemed so dingy, so small, cramped and claustrophobic. Winter felt like burrowing deeper and deeper into the earth: a dark tunnel that only led to more darkness, no light at the end of it. 

But Miami felt like hope. He could feel it unfurling inside him, sending out small tender shoots. 

“Ready to go?” Sid said next to him. 

Zhenya tightened his grip on his suitcase. “Yes,” he said, and they went out together into the sunlight. 

The housekeeping service had been by earlier in the week, but Zhenya liked to walk through the house when he arrived anyway, opening all the windows to let in the light and air. Sid left his bag in the hall and followed him, drifting from room to room. 

“This is really nice,” he said. “It’s bigger than I expected.” 

“Too big,” Zhenya said, because it was true: three bedrooms and a pool, all for one person. He loved his little house, but for years had been thinking he should sell it and buy something more manageable—a condo in one of the luxury resorts, maybe. Coming here always reminded him of being twenty and stupidly hopeful, seeing the place for the first time and thinking: _plenty of room for a family._

He saved the master bedroom for last. It was his favorite room in the house: big and airy, with a high ceiling and huge windows overlooking the pool. Against the advice of his decorator, he’d had the walls painted a light, sunny yellow. There were photos of his parents and Denis on the dresser, and a few of his Miami friends, gathered around a table eating, or out on the water posing with the day’s catch. Sid looked attentively at each one, as if he expected to be quizzed later on the details. 

“It’s okay?” Zhenya felt a little nervous, suddenly. 

Sid turned back to him, smiling. “I love it,” he said, and Zhenya felt a swell of happiness and pride. It had been a difficult winter, and his hopes felt so fragile still, so easily crushed. There were no guarantees. But Sid was here, in his house. Sid loved it. 

*

He made them sandwiches to eat out on the patio, and then, as an after-lunch treat, sat back to watch Sid pretend to be someone capable of enjoying a relaxed and unstructured vacation.

“Okay,” he said finally, after Sid had remarked for the third time on how nice it was to have nothing to do and nowhere to be. “Show me list.” 

Sid looked guilty. “What list?” 

He was so predictable. “List you make,” Zhenya said, holding out his hand. “Things to do in Miami. I know you have.” 

“I didn’t—” Sid said, and then sighed. “Okay, fine, so I did a little advance research. I wanted to be prepared.” He opened his wallet and took out a folded piece of paper. 

Zhenya read through it. Most of it was standard touristy stuff, the kind of thing he did when his parents were in town. Some of it, though—

“Candlelight dinner?” he read aloud, raising his eyebrows. “ _Spa day_?” 

Sid snatched the list back, scowling. “It was just on some website.” 

“Sid, you hate spa,” Zhenya said, amused. “It’s like, mandatory relax. Have to wear mask, think about skin, listen to ocean sounds.” He liked the idea very much, but he was pretty sure that spas, as a concept, were located firmly in Sid’s fourth or fifth circle of hell. 

“Well, we don’t have to do everything on the list.” Sid sounded a little put out.

“No, it’s good,” Zhenya said, though privately he wondered what kinds of websites Sid had been consulting. He hadn’t done much advance planning himself. His own plans were still mostly: go into heat; fuck all week; convince Sid to make a real go of it. But he could admit that, in the meantime, it might be good to get out of the house. 

*

They settled on South Beach. Zhenya rarely ventured down that way anymore, but Ocean Drive was exactly the kind of tourist trap Sid loved. For someone who wore only navy shirts and thought wood on wood the peak of interior aesthetics, Sid had an appetite for tourist kitsch that rivaled Zhenya’s mother’s. They could easily kill an afternoon wandering along the waterfront—Zhenya people-watching, Sid experiencing what he would almost certainly feel was the “real Miami.” 

It was as crowded as ever—the sidewalks packed with tourists and outdoor tables, cars crawling up and down the boulevard in search of street parking. They walked close together, bumping shoulders whenever a gaggle of tourists jostled past them. 

Sid seemed oddly content to wander, as if, having settled on an activity, he could let himself relax into it. He stopped now and then to look at one of the boutique storefronts, or to study a restaurant menu, like he was comparison shopping for Miami’s best fifteen-dollar margarita. 

Zhenya didn’t mind. It gave him an excuse to check out Sid’s ass in his unbelievably dorky khaki shorts. He’d packed three identical pairs; Zhenya had watched him hang them up in the wardrobe earlier. 

“Quit perving on me,” Sid said, after he’d finished inspecting the daily specials at a seafood restaurant. “I can feel you looking.” 

“What, it’s nice view,” Zhenya said, grinning. “Florida peach.” 

Sid snorted. “Pretty sure that’s Georgia, bud. Florida’s oranges, right?” 

“No, peach. I have house here, Sid, I’m expert.”

They wandered on, bickering lightly. It had been a long time since they’d spent time together like this, without practice or team events or sex as an excuse. On the road and at home, Zhenya was careful to maintain a safe distance, to balance out evenings spent together with a few days apart. At practice he pestered Horny, or bullied the rookies; he rarely sought out Sid’s attention, no matter how warm it made him feel to make Sid laugh, or to have Sid’s gaze fixed on him. They never sat next to each other on bus rides or flights, so it was normal—expected, even—for him to pass the empty seat beside Sid without stopping. 

Here, though, they could be anonymous. They could be any couple on holiday together, touching each other easily, casually, as if there were nothing to it. 

Sid paused in front of one of the tacky souvenir shops jammed in side-by-side, selling identical tat. 

“Maybe I should get Taylor something,” he said. 

Zhenya eyed the storefront doubtfully. 

“It’s junk, Sid,” he said. “She want plastic keychain, shot glass? Should buy nice thing.” He tried to think of what Sid’s sister would like. Perfume didn’t really seem like her thing, or fancy leather bags. Maybe one of the boutique attendants could suggest something. 

But Sid was already drifting deeper into the store. Zhenya looked longingly towards the beach, and then sighed, following him inside. 

“Sid, it’s so lame,” he said, keeping his voice low so the sharp-eyed shop attendant wouldn’t hear him. 

“You have a giant shark over your fireplace, buddy,” Sid said, inspecting a snowglobe with a miniature coral reef inside. “Not sure you’re one to talk.”

“Shark is cool, Sid,” Zhenya said, with total conviction. It was perhaps the coolest thing he owned, with the possible exception of his alien and predator sculptures. 

He trailed after him, up and down the aisles. Sid kept picking things up and checking the price tags, which was absolutely killing Zhenya—he’d never met a cheaper millionaire. He took a surreptitious photo of him doing it, and then felt kind of stupid: who was he going to send it to, anyway? As far as he knew Sid hadn’t told anyone he was coming here. 

“Oh, wow,” Sid said reverently. “Geno, come look at this.” He was touching the edge of a novelty Florida license plate that read SIDNEY. 

Zhenya groaned like he’d been stabbed. “ _Sid_.”

The corner of Sid’s mouth twitched, and then he burst out laughing. 

“You thought I was serious,” he said, delighted with himself. 

Zhenya rolled his eyes, spinning the carousel display. Sid was so lame, and all of his jokes were objectively terrible, and most terrible of all was how charming Zhenya found him, with his awful honking laugh. 

“Come on, let’s see beach,” he said. “Get ice cream.”

*

They had dinner at Zhenya’s favorite Cuban restaurant. He’d called ahead to make the arrangements, while Sid was distracted watching a pack of teenagers rollerblading up and down the waterfront. It was worth it for the look on Sid’s face when the waitress led them to a secluded little spot on the roof, and a table covered in more than a dozen flickering candles. 

“You’re such an asshole,” Sid said, after the waitress left them. She had spent a lot of time shooting Zhenya knowing glances, and speaking to Sid as if he were a small child about to receive a very special surprise. 

Zhenya was still falling over himself laughing. “What? We have to do list.” 

“She probably thinks you’re going to propose,” Sid said, glowering at his menu. “What did you even tell her?” 

“I just say, it’s very special occasion,” Zhenya said. “It’s not every day Sidney Crosby takes vacation. You don’t like?” 

Sid was grumpy through the first course, but a couple glasses of wine loosened him right up, and by the time the main course came out he was in a good mood again. They split a bottle of wine between them and got to work on a second. 

Neither of them drank much during the season, and Zhenya was thoroughly enjoying it: the pleasant buzz, the easy flow of the conversation, the way Sid got pinker and pinker, a little flushed in the candlelight. It was even more intoxicating to have Sid’s attention fixed on him like this—Sid laughing at his jokes; Sid watching him over the rim of his wine glass, mouth stained a dark red. 

“I’m glad I’m here,” Sid said suddenly. “I’m glad you asked me.” 

“No snow,” Zhenya said. “You disappoint?” 

“I think I’ll live,” Sid said. He prodded at a piece of mango on his plate. “It’s actually, uh. It’s kind of nice to come back here.” 

“You come before?” Zhenya asked, surprised. “Why you not say? I show you good place to go, good food, good beach.” 

“Yeah,” Sid said. “Uh, we came down for a bonding ceremony, a couple years back. One of Kathy’s college friends. And then we stayed for a few days after, at one of the resorts.” 

Zhenya could think of absolutely nothing to say. He picked up his wine glass and took a long sip. 

“It’s nice time, then,” he said finally, when Sid didn’t say anything else. 

“The resort was nice, yeah,” Sid said.

There was a breeze coming off the water, and Zhenya felt a little chilled, suddenly. The candles were burning low, in danger of guttering out. 

“You miss her?” 

Sid looked at him, then away. “I mean—it was almost ten years, you know? It’s a long time to be with someone. You have to sort of, I don’t know. Figure out how to be on your own again.” 

Zhenya didn’t know, not really. He picked up sometimes on the road, mostly in bar bathrooms or the backrooms of clubs—places where the air tended to be suffused with scents and his partners drunk enough not to notice that he didn’t have one. In Moscow, over the long summers, he had a few people he would call up now and then: old hookups who liked him, or his fame, enough to overlook the rest. He was experienced at sex—good at it, he thought—but he didn’t have the first clue about the kind of domestic life Sid and Kathy had shared. 

He had always found Kathy difficult to read. He’d spent that first year avoiding her, probably a little too obviously. By the time it was clear that she would be a permanent fixture in Sid’s life, the damage was done. She was polite to him, but coolly so. At team events their conversations never strayed beyond safe topics: Pittsburgh weather, the indignities of the travel schedule, her home renovation projects. 

He wondered if Sid had ever told her about the two of them. He thought probably not. It would have been awkward to explain, and anyway, he wasn’t even sure it counted as something worth mentioning. A season’s worth of teenaged fumblings, compared to a relationship of nearly ten years? A blip, nothing more. 

Sid was saying something. He forced his attention back. 

“All right,” Sid said. “You've wined me, you've dined me, now what?” 

Zhenya shrugged. "What else on list?"

Sid licked his lips. “Well,” he said, and shifted a little in his seat. “I didn’t write down everything I wanted to do on the list.” 

He looked a little nervous, like there was a chance in hell that Zhenya would turn him down. Zhenya looked at him and grinned, slow and filthy, just to watch Sid go even pinker. 

“Get check,” he said. 

*  
On the drive home Sid put his hand on Zhenya’s thigh, a little too high up, and didn’t comment once on Zhenya’s driving. At the light Zhenya glanced over and Sid was looking back at him, his gaze steady, eyes liquid dark. 

He fumbled with the keys at the front door. In the kitchen Sid pulled Zhenya against him, his body bracketing him in against the cupboards. He tilted his face upwards. 

“Sid,” Zhenya said, low and tender, and took his face in his hands, kissing him in the darkened kitchen. 

It wasn’t wise to kiss Sid for long—not the way they used to when they were young, making out until Zhenya’s lips were chapped and raw from kissing, his heart pounding in his chest. But Zhenya had already thrown most of his rules out the window by bringing Sid here. It could hardly make things worse. 

And besides, Sid was a good kisser. Alphas could be pushy about it, but for someone so competitive Sid had always been oddly content to let Zhenya take the lead. He would go lax in Zhenya’s arms and sigh into Zhenya’s mouth, like he was doing now: letting Zhenya kiss him thoroughly, as slowly and deeply as he wanted. 

They made it to the bedroom eventually, moving apart just long enough to shed their clothes: Sid fumbling with his belt, Zhenya tugging impatiently at his shirt. The room was dark, but the moon was full and low over the water, light silvering in through the sheer curtains. On the bed Zhenya drew Sid in—a dark shape above him, a heavy weight settling over his body—and kissed him again, slow and lingering. 

“Geno,” Sid murmured, pressing his mouth to the line of his jaw, his throat. 

Zhenya shivered, his skin prickling all over, legs falling wider apart. Sid settled between them, shifting against him. After the urgency of the drive home, everything felt slowed down, unhurried, the moment suspended in time. He didn’t know how long they rocked against each other like that, a rhythm that ebbed and flowed like the tide. 

Probably Sid wanted to fuck him, but that was the one line Zhenya wouldn’t cross easily again. Hands and mouths and rubbing off against each other in the dark: that felt safer, as safe as Zhenya knew how to make it. 

Sid’s fingers drifted lower and Zhenya startled, almost kneeing him in the chest. 

“Sorry,” Sid said immediately, drawing back. “I didn’t mean—”

Zhenya kissed him again, to distract them both, so Sid wouldn’t see the flush in his cheeks. Of course Sid knew; of course he would never say anything, far too polite to draw attention to it. But it embarrassed Zhenya, made him awkward and self-conscious. Experience had taught him it killed the mood for most alphas, to be reminded he didn’t get wet. 

“Wait,” he says, putting a hand on Sid’s chest. 

In the bathroom he rummaged around in his toiletries bag until he found the bottle of lube he’d brought. He poured a generous handful into his palm and brought it down between his legs, slicking up his thighs. 

When he came back into the bedroom, Sid was sitting up in bed. “Sorry,” he said again. 

“Shh,” Zhenya said, and got back into bed. He lay down, pulling Sid to him for another kiss, and then rolled over onto his side, spooning up against him, Sid’s chest against his back. 

“What’re you—” Sid said, and then trailed off, as Zhenya reached down to guide Sid’s dick between his thighs. “Oh,” he said, hips rolling forward. “Geno.” 

“Like this,” Zhenya said, squeezing his thighs together. “It’s okay?” 

Sid drew in a sharp breath. “Yeah,” he said unsteadily, “yeah, that’s—you feel really good.” 

He rocked his hips forward experimentally, as Zhenya held himself still, his legs tight together. It took Sid a moment to find a rhythm, but then it was good again, easy: the slow hot drag of him between Zhenya’s thighs; his fingers splayed over Zhenya’s hip, keeping him just where he wanted him. 

“God,” Sid said, and then he didn’t say anything else, his breathing a harsh rasp in Zhenya’s ear. Zhenya wondered what it felt like for him, if he could imagine Zhenya was slick for him, wet and soft and open for his cock. Sid could knot him like this, if he—not that he would want to, probably: it wouldn’t feel the same. But Zhenya could make it good for him. He could try. He could lie still for him like this, his thighs clenched together, whatever Sid needed for it to feel real. 

It was hard to focus. It felt good—it always felt good, to have Sid touching him, holding him like this. But he could feel the lube starting to dry, tacky between his thighs instead of wet. Sid hadn’t come yet, was still rutting between Zhenya’s thighs. He couldn’t get up again without making some excuse, without drawing Sid’s attention to it, and maybe that would kill the fantasy. 

“Close,” Sid gasped, and Zhenya felt a surge of relief, heady as an orgasm. He clenched his thighs tighter and reached down to coax himself hard again, making the soft little noises Sid seemed to like. Sid thrust once more, hard, and came with a groan, in thick pulses between Zhenya’s thighs. 

“God, G.” Sid nuzzled into the crook of Zhenya’s shoulder, breathing hot against his neck. “That was incredible. Did you—” 

He palmed Zhenya’s dick and stilled. 

“Did you come?” he asked, sounding uncertain. 

Zhenya pushed his hand away. He was only half hard. 

“It’s okay,” he said. “I think it’s wine. I don’t need.” 

Sid was silent for a moment. “Do you—”

“No, it’s okay,” Zhenya said, and after a moment Sid drew away from him. 

Neither of them said anything else. Zhenya wanted to get up, to shower the mess of come and lube from between his legs. But he forced himself to lie there, until at last Sid’s breathing evened out in sleep. 

*

He got up and showered first thing in the morning, while Sid was still fast asleep. It was rare for him to be awake before Sid—usually it was Zhenya who had to be dragged out of his nest of warm blankets each morning. But Sid was still dead to the world when he came out of the bathroom, lying flat on his back with one arm flung out across the bed. His expression was soft but a little worried, even in sleep. He looked ten years younger, his mouth slightly open, still stained a little from the wine. 

It was early evening back home. Zhenya selected a banana from the fruit bowl and went out by the pool to call his parents.

“Zhenya,” his mother said. “Oh, my darling, it’s been so long. We were beginning to think you’d forgotten our number.” 

“It’s just the season,” Zhenya said, sitting down cross-legged by the edge of the pool. “You know how it is, Mama. But look, I’m calling now. How are you? How’s Papa’s back?” 

“Oh, I’m all right, I’m keeping busy. And your father says he’s fine, his back’s hardly hurting at all, but of course he can’t fool me.” His mother made a tsking noise. “I tell him, Volodya, I feel you aching all the time. The bond doesn’t lie. Oh, he doesn’t like that! A little privacy, please, he tells me. Let an old man have his aches and pains in peace.” 

It was a well-worn argument, the script familiar enough that Zhenya could recite both his parents’ parts by heart. Their bond was an unusually strong one, though as a child it had simply seemed like the normal way of things. Of course your mother could sense your father coming home from work, three city blocks away. Of course your father knew, without being told, when your mother’s migraines were coming on, and the children needed to be packed off to the rink so she could rest. That was what a bond was, what love was: two souls in perfect attunement, resonating at the same frequency. 

“But enough about us,” his mother said. “How are you, my dear? Are you resting?” 

“Yes,” he said, and hesitated. “Sidney came along, actually. He didn’t have plans for the week, so we—he thought it would be nice, to see the city.” 

There was a slight pause: only a beat. It could have been the connection. 

“How nice,” his mother said. 

“Yes, but you know how he is,” Zhenya said. “I tell him it’s a vacation, but no, he doesn’t want to lie around the pool all day. He wants to see all the sights. I’ll have to hide his skates, in a day or two, or I won’t be able to keep him from the rink.” 

He was speaking too quickly, perhaps, a rush of words that left him feeling slightly breathless. This time the silence stretched on a little longer, too long for him to make excuses. 

“Oh, Zhenchenka,” his mother said at last, her voice heavy with some emotion he couldn’t identify. “Is this wise, my love?” 

It felt like a thin blade slid between his ribs: a bright clean pain. He drew in a breath, and said nothing. 

“We’re so fond of Sidney, you know—he’s been a wonderful friend to you. He’s taken such good care of you, all these years you’ve been so far from home.”

“Mama,” he said, more sharply than he meant to. “It’s nothing, it’s not—”

“You’ve always set your heart on things.” He could hear the slight tremor in her voice, as if she were close to tears. “And we’re so proud of you, darling, of course we are. I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”

“Mama,” he said abruptly. “I have to go now. I’ll talk to you later, okay?” 

“Zhenya—”

He ended the call. For a moment he sat motionless, his chest felt tight, an iron band around his lungs. Then he got up, dropping his phone on the lounger. 

If Sid was up, he hadn’t yet made his presence known. Zhenya glanced up at the bedroom window, then went out the back gate, to the narrow path that led down to the water. 

It was early enough that the beach was mostly deserted, only a few walkers picking for shells here and there. He stood looking at the water for a moment, and then he turned and began to run. 

A dog barked and lunged, yanking at its lead as he passed. Zhenya ran faster, and then faster still. 

The sand was cool beneath his feet. He could feel the coiled strength in his quads and calves, tensing and releasing with each push. His heart was pounding, beating out a fierce rhythm in his chest. Like this, he wasn’t _waiting_. He wasn’t—frozen, trapped in some endless limbo waiting for his body to wake up, to catch up, to do what it was meant to do. There was power in his body still: a power he could channel and direct, could bend to his will.

A piece of driftwood had washed up on the shore. He leapt over it and landed hard on the other side: too hard. His ankle shifted a little, as sand gave way unexpectedly beneath him. A hot sharp pain shot up his leg. 

He swore, slowing first, then stopping. He limped a little ways up the shore, careful not to put weight on his bad knee, and then sank down to the ground. 

God. _God._ Who was he trying to fool? 

He lay back, stretching his arms out beside him, and stared up at the sky. His chest was heaving still, and he could feel where the sand was sticking to him, clinging to his sweat-damp skin. 

He had told his mother, years ago. There had been no one else to tell, and he had felt so lonely, and so alone with it: his silly little dreams and the ache in his chest, a yearning that went nowhere and meant nothing to anyone else but him. Even after two years in America, he had barely known his teammates, and would have died of embarrassment before telling Seryozha. His mother had let him talk and talk, half-whispering into the phone for hours before bed. _Oh, my darling. Oh, my baby._

He had been so homesick those first years. Scent-blindness always made adjusting to a new locker room difficult. He had to work so much harder to read the dynamics of a room, to detect the subtle hierarchies and shifting allegiances that others picked up on as naturally as breathing. The additional frustrations of the language barrier had made it feel almost impossible, so much so that he had wondered, sometimes, if he had made a mistake in leaving home. 

Sid had been awkward too, in his own way: respected but not liked, not yet, too bossy and talkative by half. When they had become friends, and then—something else, Zhenya thought it made sense, in an odd way. They were so different, but they both knew what it felt like, to be on the outside looking in. 

He hadn’t been wrong. He just hadn’t realized that one day, Sid would grow out of the ways he didn’t fit, his rough edges gradually sanded down. 

Zhenya sighed. He sat up and probed gently at his knee. No pain, thankfully, only the familiar slight stiffness. 

Sid was probably awake now, wondering where he was. After a moment he heaved himself up, and began the slow trudge home. 

*

“What do you usually do when you’re down here?” Sid asked over breakfast. 

He had put some effort into it. Zhenya had returned home to discover Sid plating up two gigantic omelets stuffed with peppers and mushrooms, a step up from Zhenya’s usual sad egg scramble. There was cut fruit too, in a little bowl, and fresh coffee for both of them. 

Zhenya shrugged. “Swim, work out. Fish, sometimes.” 

“You’ve got friends here, right?” 

Zhenya hadn’t called Ilya, and wasn’t planning on it. Sid was more than capable of entertaining himself for a few hours—probably he was dying to do sand sprints, or some equally punishing workout—but for some reason Zhenya didn’t relish the thought of letting him out of his sight. 

“I see them other time,” he said. “Summer, maybe.” 

“We could have them over for dinner, if you wanted,” Sid said. “Thursday, maybe? I could grill.” 

Zhenya stabbed a bit of egg with his fork. “Maybe it’s not so fun for you. Everybody drink, speak Russian, forget English.” 

It wasn’t true: everyone had been in the States long enough to make small talk with him, at least. Sid was polite, friendly, an attentive listener. Zhenya’s friends would love him.

“I don’t mind,” Sid said. “Come on, it could be fun. I’d like to meet them.” 

Zhenya took a sip of his coffee instead of answering. He knew Sid was just being thoughtful, but it rankled a little. There was no need for him to act like he was Zhenya’s—partner, or something: the two of them playing house, playing lovers, for Zhenya’s friends to see.

“Maybe they’re busy,” he said. 

Sid was quiet for a moment. “Okay,” he said. “Yeah. It was just an idea.” 

It felt like kicking a puppy, or an earnest, oblivious child. Zhenya cursed inwardly. 

“I text Ilya,” he said. “It’s good idea. I’m just lazy, you know? Lots of work, feed everyone, buy drinks.”

“I can handle it,” Sid said immediately, brightening at the prospect of organizing something, of being tasked with some significant responsibility. 

Zhenya sighed. Well, he could always cancel if—if something happened. If things changed.

*

Sid disappeared to work out after breakfast. Zhenya puttered around the house for a while, inventing small chores for himself. He swallowed one of his pills and spent a few moments examining himself in the mirror, trying to assess whether he looked different, felt different, in any way. Finally, he changed into his swim trunks and went out to the pool. 

For a long time he let himself drift, trailing his fingers in the cool water. He closed his eyes, listening to the faint cries of the gulls, to the water lapping softly against the sides of his plastic raft. The sun felt like a benediction: a grace unasked for, perhaps undeserved, leaching the cold from his bones in slow degrees. 

He fell asleep without meaning to, slipping down into dreams. When he opened his eyes, blinking, the light had changed, the sun sinking lower in the sky. 

Sid was sitting in one of the pool loungers. He was reading—some thick military biography he’d been lugging around on road trips for almost as long as Zhenya had known him. There was a betting pool on how many years it would take him to finish; Flower still administered it in absentia. 

Zhenya slid off the far side of the raft and let himself sink beneath the water. It was cool and shadowed in the depths, the quiet undisturbed. When he surfaced at last, Sid was watching him. 

He swam over to the side of the pool and drew himself up on his elbows. Neither of them spoke for a moment. Finally Zhenya heaved himself out of the pool and shook himself like a dog, water flying everywhere. He padded over to Sid. 

“What you’re reading?” 

“Ha,” Sid said dryly. 

“No, I’m curious,” Zhenya said, smirking a little. “Must be so interest, you read so many times.” 

It was an old, familiar joke, and an apology of sorts, too. Sid looked at him a moment, then shut the book, tossing it on the empty lounger next to him. 

“C’mere,” he said, and Zhenya moved towards him as though magnetized.

Sid slid a hand down Zhenya’s thigh, down to his bad knee. He looked up at him, squinting a little against the sun. “We don’t have to see your friends.” 

Zhenya shook his head. “They find out I’m here, don’t call, maybe they’re angry. It’s good we see.” 

Sid made a humming noise. Zhenya was dripping on him, water running in rivulets down his shoulders and back, but Sid didn’t seem bothered. 

“You look good,” he said. “Going to get a nice tan.” 

“You should try.” Zhenya shifted a little, nudging his knee against Sid’s palm. “Or maybe it’s illegal, for Canada? Have to be so pale, blend in with snow.” 

“I actually live near the beach, you know.” 

Zhenya snorted. Sid’s idea of a sweltering summer day was a high of seventy-five. Canadian beaches were probably fine, but Zhenya would take the tropics any day. He was a creature of the sun; he wanted to bask. 

“No, really.” Sid stroked the back of Zhenya’s knee, petting at the soft skin there with his fingertips. “Nova Scotia’s beautiful in the summer. You should come see it sometime.” 

“You give me tour?” 

“Yeah,” Sid said. He was looking at Zhenya, studying his face. “I could put you up for a couple weeks, show you around. My parents would love to see you.” 

Zhenya felt strange: hot, and dizzy, almost, lightheaded from sleeping too long in the sun. There was something oddly heavy in Sid's gaze, and it made his legs feel curiously weak. He wanted, with a sudden intensity, to sink to his knees right there on the unforgiving concrete and rest his head against Sid's thigh: his eyes closed, Sid's fingers carding through his damp hair.

There was no one around to see. There was no reason why he couldn’t.

“Maybe," he said. "It's busy, in summer."

Sid's fingers stilled against the back of his knee, and then, after a moment, dropped away. "Yeah," he said. "Well. Sometime, maybe. I'll get dinner started, if you want to shower." 

Upstairs, Zhenya locked himself in the bathroom and swallowed another pill. He gripped the sides of the sink and closed his eyes, breathing in through his nose, out through his mouth, until he felt a little steadier. 

His mother wasn’t wrong. Zhenya had achieved some pretty impossible dreams in his day: fleeing to America, playing for the Penguins. Winning the Cup with Sid, for Sid, three times over. But there were dreams, and there were fantasies—castles in the air, spun out of hopes too tenuous, too insubstantial, to pin your heart to. 

He ran the water too hot and stood beneath it for a long time with his eyes closed, letting the spray hit him squarely between the shoulders. When he jerked off he thought first of nothing, his mind a perfect blank—and then, after a while, of Sid’s fingertips against the back of his knee: the touch featherlight, barely there. 

*

The next morning they worked out at Zhenya’s local gym. Well: Sid worked out, pushing himself through one of the light torture sessions he and Andy considered a maintenance workout. Zhenya made a leisurely circuit of the weight machines and parked himself on a stationary bike. 

“Don’t strain anything,” Sid said dryly, slinging a sweat-stained towel over his shoulder as he passed by. Zhenya was pedaling slowly away, absorbed in texting Ilya. 

“I’m busy, Sid,” Zhenya called after him. “Have to make plan. Have most annoying guest, need so much entertain.” 

They showered at the gym and walked home along the beach. Zhenya’s texts had secured them Ilya’s boat for the afternoon, along with his fishing gear. Sid liked fishing—Zhenya got the impression it was a requirement for Canadian citizenship, or something—and Zhenya liked lounging around in the sun doing nothing in particular. It was an ideal compromise. 

The marina was quiet on a weekday afternoon. He liked Ilya’s boat, a sleek little yacht with a powerful engine. Zhenya steered them easily into open waters while Sid puttered around below deck, exploring the galley kitchen and the small cabin. The day was perfect: the water calm and clear, the sky a brilliant blue, dotted here and there with wisps of white clouds. 

He brought them out towards the mouth of the bay, out of the path of the chartered tour boats, before dropping anchor. Sid was already out on the deck, stripped down to his black swim trunks and rummaging around in the cooler. He looked up when Zhenya came out, pushing his sunglasses up to give him an incredulous look. 

“What?” Zhenya said, grinning. He’d found the fluorescent orange Speedo in a drawer that morning, forgotten there on some previous offseason visit. They were a little tight, but he thought Sid would appreciate the effect. 

“Get over here,” Sid said, and Zhenya sauntered towards him across the deck. Sid pulled him in by his hips, spreading his thighs wide enough for Zhenya to stand between them. Zhenya put his hands on Sid’s shoulders, balancing against him. 

“You like?” he asked. 

“God, you’re ridiculous.” Sid slid his hands down to cup Zhenya’s ass, pulling him closer. “You’re killing me, G. I thought we were supposed to be fishing.” 

“Mm, yes,” Zhenya said, carding his fingers through Sid’s hair. “I bring pole.” 

Sid huffed out a laugh, his breath hot against Zhenya’s stomach. “Has that line ever worked for you?” 

Zhenya thought that was a little rich, given the slightly slack-jawed expression Sid was still sporting. He tightened his fingers in Sid’s curls, tugging lightly.

“Fine,” he said. “You want fish? Let’s fish.” 

Nothing much was biting, and after a while Zhenya gave up all pretense of trying to catch anything. It was much more entertaining to bask on the deck on his big beach towel, making a big show of rubbing himself down with tanning oil every half hour or so. He could feel Sid’s gaze on him, heavy as a slow and lingering touch. But Sid seemed content to just watch, sitting in his deck chair with his fishing rod propped against his leg. 

It was making Zhenya feel a little crazy. The Speedo really was a little too tight, just enough to feel ever so slightly constricting. He rolled over onto his back and spread his legs a little, sliding down to adjust himself. It felt good, and he let his hand linger there for a moment, touching himself absently, until he heard Sid draw in a breath. 

Zhenya tilted his face away, hiding a smirk. Lightly, teasingly, he began to touch himself with his fingertips, feeling out the shape of his dick through the fabric. 

“G,” Sid said, a little hoarsely. 

Zhenya ignored him: let Sid have a taste of his own medicine. He palmed himself through his trunks and let his hips rock up a little, grinding against the heel of his hand. Oh: that was good. He hissed a little through his teeth, and lifted his other hand to his chest, rolling a nipple between his fingers. 

There was a clatter. Zhenya opened his eyes to find Sid kneeling beside him. 

“Cabin?” he said, his gaze raking hungrily over the long stretch of Zhenya’s body. 

Zhenya pretended to consider it, tugging a little at the stiff peak of his nipple. “But Sid,” he said, wide-eyed. “You don’t want fish?” 

“I want to suck you off,” Sid said bluntly, “right now, and I’d rather not put on a show for the tourists.”

Below deck Zhenya let himself be tumbled back onto the small mattress in the cramped sleeping quarters. Sid crawled over him, hooking his fingers under the waistband of Zhenya’s Speedo. 

“You,” he said, yanking it down, “are a menace.” 

“It’s bad?” Zhenya said, fluttering his eyelashes. “My English, Sid—”

“You’re so full of shit,” Sid said, and kissed the inside of Zhenya’s thigh. Zhenya could feel his smile. 

Sid had been a little awkward about blowjobs when they had first started, which had worried Zhenya until he realized what Sid was uncomfortable with was the idea of performing less than brilliantly at everything he tried. Luckily Sid was eminently coachable and a quick learner, and after Zhenya had shown him a few tricks he took to it with the same relentlessness he did everything else. 

He loved Sid’s mouth—the soft lush heat of it; his red lips, far too pretty for an alpha. Sid couldn’t take him very deep yet without choking, but Zhenya didn’t mind. He liked to drag the head of his dick over the flat of Sid’s tongue, and his fat bottom lip; he liked to fuck into the soft inside of Sid’s cheek, his fingertips tracing the slight bulge there. 

It got him so worked up, every time, and he didn’t know if it was the feeling of Sid’s mouth or the way he looked with Zhenya’s cock in his mouth, his expression focused but oddly serene, his eyes fluttering shut and then open again. 

He was already close. Sid caught his come neatly in his palm, wiping his hand off with a tissue from the bedside table. 

“How was that?” he asked. Sid liked immediate feedback, the more focused the better. 

“Mm,” he said, thumbing over Sid’s bottom lip. He felt languid and relaxed, boneless. “It’s good effort. Think you need practice, though. Optional skate. Lots drills.” 

Sid snorted. 

“Now I show you best,” Zhenya said. 

“Oh yeah?” Sid said. “You gonna rock my world?” 

“Yes,” Zhenya said simply, because he was. 

He slid down Sid’s body. He was already mostly hard, just from sucking Zhenya off, but Zhenya would tease him a little anyway. Sid got so impatient: he hated to wait for anything. Zhenya thought it was good for him, to feel a little thwarted now and then. 

“G, come on,” Sid whined, as Zhenya kissed and mouthed at the head, tasting the bitter saltiness where he was already wet. 

“You want slow?” Zhenya said innocently. He licked a long stripe up the shaft, holding Sid’s gaze. 

Sid propped himself up on his elbows, looking down at him for a long moment. Slowly, deliberately, he spread his thighs wider. 

“You know exactly what I want, G,” he said, his voice low and rough; Zhenya felt it thrill all the way down his spine. “So why don’t you quit fucking around and give it to me.” 

There was no more teasing, after that. 

Zhenya was competitive about nearly everything, and this, perhaps, more than most. Secretly he relished the chance to show off a bit. He must have seemed so clumsy when they were younger: practically virginal. As a teenager his self-consciousness about his muted scent, his late-blooming body, had always held him back. 

Sid had been so many of his firsts. But he hadn’t spent the past decade sitting chastely at home, waiting to be wanted. He was good at this now, practiced, and he knew it. 

He took Sid into his mouth. Sid’s cock was as thick as the rest of him, and Zhenya loved it—the heft and weight of it, the heavy drag against his tongue. He loved the bitten-off little sounds Sid made, and the way he tried to keep his hips still at first, until he got too worked up to be polite. 

“Fuck,” Sid groaned. “Fuck, G, can I—” 

He drew his knee up, sliding a hand down to cup the base of Zhenya’s skull, and Zhenya understood. He closed his eyes, letting his jaw go obediently slack. 

Sid thrust shallowly at first, then slowly deeper, the head of his dick was nudging the back of Zhenya’s throat. The angle wasn’t quite right: Zhenya couldn’t take him all the way down like this, but it didn’t seem to matter. Like this, it was overwhelming in a different way. He felt—surrounded, encompassed, Sid’s hand cradling the back of his head, careful but firm, holding Zhenya where he wanted him as he used his mouth. 

It was hard to breathe. His jaw ached, stretched impossibly wide. He was flushed all over, sweating. He could feel himself drooling, messy and wet, and Sid just kept going: taking what he wanted from Zhenya, what he needed. He moaned involuntarily, choking a little, and felt Sid’s belly go taut. 

“Fuck,” Sid gasped out, his cock twitching. He drew out and thrust in again, and again, erratic now, almost frantic. “G, I’m gonna—” and then he groaned, the sound low and guttural, pushing Zhenya’s head down, and Zhenya felt it: the swell of Sid’s knot, hot against his lips. 

It only lasted a second. Sid was already shifting, cock slipping free of Zhenya’s mouth as he rolled half onto his side. 

“Sid,” Zhenya said, a little stunned, and Sid groaned again, curling in on himself. 

“Sorry,” he said. “Fuck. Sorry, I should’ve—I didn’t realize.” 

He sounded embarrassed, and a little desperate. His hip and arm were blocking Zhenya’s view, but Zhenya could tell he was still touching himself, shuddering through his orgasm. 

“Sid, it’s okay.” Zhenya was a little bewildered by this sudden shyness. “It’s hot, I like.” 

He sat up and touched Sid’s hip gently. Sid shivered again, a long slow tremor that went all the way through him. But he let Zhenya urge him over onto his back. His face was red and a little blotchy, a pink flush spreading down his chest. He was still coming, in hot pulses, his fat knot swelling in his hand. It was maybe the hottest thing Zhenya had ever seen. 

“You like,” Zhenya said, almost wondering. “You like so much.” 

“Yeah,” Sid said, “I—god, Geno.” 

Zhenya shifted, lying down again between Sid’s thighs. Hesitantly, he bent his head. He licked experimentally between Sid’s fingers, the tip of his tongue touching hot skin. 

Sid let out a sound almost like a sob, his hand falling away. Zhenya watched him for a moment, and then he did it again, and again, pressing soft wet kisses all over the tender swell of it, sucking a little. 

The effect was incredible. Zhenya thought he had seen Sid undone before, but he had never seen him like this: open-mouthed and gasping, fisting the sheets with both hands as he squirmed and bucked beneath him. His chest was heaving. 

“Sid,” Zhenya said, laving at him with his tongue, and then a lot of nonsense in Russian, murmured softly against Sid’s skin: _sweetheart, darling, perfect for me._

It took a long time for Sid’s knot to go down. Zhenya lay next to him and soothed him through it. He replaced his mouth with his hand after a while, sliding his fingers through the sticky mess on Sid’s belly and stroking him wet: long slow strokes up his shaft and down to massage his knot. He watched Sid’s face intently, until Sid, still pink, hid his face against Zhenya’s shoulder, breathing hotly against his skin. Zhenya was charmed: he couldn’t remember the last time he had seen Sid shy like this. 

“That’s—I think it’s done,” Sid said at last, in a muffled voice. 

Zhenya thought so too: Sid was almost soft again. Still, it was with some reluctance that he drew his hand away. 

Sid squirmed a little. “Sorry,” he said. “God, that’s embarrassing.”

“It’s hot,” Zhenya said again, which was possibly the understatement of the century. He still felt a little dazed, and he hadn’t even been the one coming. 

Sid rolled onto his back. “God,” he said. “That was—wow.” He put a hand over his face. “I haven’t done that in years.” 

“You don’t knot?” Zhenya said, frowning. 

“Not usually,” Sid said. “Not outside of rut. It’s such a mess. I don’t even—god, do you remember that time on Mario’s couch?” 

Zhenya laughed, the sound startled out of him. “You so scared,” he said. “You spill, what was—”

“Salsa,” Sid said. “I couldn’t get the spot out, so I poured like, an entire jar of salsa on the cushion, and told Nathalie I was just gonna buy them a new couch, since I’d ruined it. I wouldn’t even let her up to see it, I was too afraid they’d get one whiff of it and figure it out. I think they thought I was having a nervous breakdown or something.” 

“You baby,” Zhenya said. “They worry.” 

“Definitely not a baby,” Sid said dryly. “Just a very horny teenager.” 

Zhenya remembered. It had been the first time he’d seen an alpha knot outside of porn. Every part of it had surprised him: how sensitive the knot was, how much of a mess it made, and of course, how red and flustered Sid got about the whole thing. Back then his English had been so shaky he’d barely understood one in twenty words of Sid’s frantic monologue: sorry, and hot, and god, Geno. 

They rarely talked about those days. Maybe Zhenya should have felt tenser about it, more on edge, but he was too relaxed, loose-limbed and drifting a little. It was a good memory: funny, and little bittersweet, tinged with the knowledge of what had come after. 

He shifted up the mattress, lying down next to Sid. 

“No salsa here,” he said. “We steal sheets. Ilya never know.” 

“I’ll know,” Sid groaned. “I won’t be able to look him in the eye tomorrow.” 

He lay his head against Zhenya’s chest and let out a long breath. Zhenya stroked his hair absently. They should get up—go for a swim, maybe. He would get them up, in a minute. But first he would let himself lie here for a little while longer, his eyes closed, listening to the sound of the water against the hull, feeling the slow rise and fall of Sid’s chest.

“G,” Sid said. “Are we okay?” 

Zhenya opened his eyes. Something in Sid’s voice put him on guard. 

“What you mean?” 

Sid was quiet for a moment. 

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know how to say it. I feel like ever since we started, you know—you’ve seemed different. Angrier, I guess. At the coaches. At me.” 

Zhenya stopped touching Sid’s hair. He felt a little flicker of irritation. 

“It’s hard season,” he said, in a clipped voice. “Bad season, for me. I’m not score, I’m frustrate.” 

“I know,” Sid said. “But it’ll be okay. You know that, right? It’s a rough patch. You just have to play through it.” 

He was so annoying. Sid loved an empty platitude, but Zhenya couldn’t believe he was delivering this particular one with such conviction, as if Zhenya wasn’t intimately familiar with how frustrated and impossible to deal with Sid was on his own pointless streaks. 

“Sully talk to me, you know,” he said abruptly. “He’s not happy.” 

“Well, you’re not exactly kissing his ass this season,” Sid said. “He’s just doing his job, G. Would it really kill you to play nice?” 

Zhenya shifted until Sid got the hint and moved, enough that he could sit up. He drew his knees up to his chest. 

“Before break, Sully say, need to think about future,” he said. “Sid, I think—maybe I’m trade.” 

“No,” Sid said, steel in his voice. “That’s not happening.” 

Zhenya stared out the porthole window. The sky was a brilliant blue, so bright it hurt to look at. The tiny cabin felt cramped, suddenly, the air close and hot. 

“Maybe he’s right,” he said. “Maybe it’s not best place for me.”

“What do you mean,” Sid said, and for the first time he sounded angry. “What, you want to be somewhere else?”

It was impossible to explain, at least in terms Sid would understand. Pittsburgh had always meant something different to him than it did to Zhenya. Zhenya liked the city, the team. He had won three Cups for them; he had lived there all his adult life. But for him, the team was Sid. It was Sid he played for; Sid he was loyal to. And that loyalty was exacting more from him, lately: maybe a higher price than he could pay. 

When Sid met someone new—

He had been so young the first time. The sense of loss, of grief, had cratered him, but he had had the resilience of youth—a deep well of it to draw on, and the desire to prove something, to Sid, maybe to the world. He felt so much older now, so much closer to defeated. Could he do it again? Could he step aside and watch Sid fall in love with someone else, sliding back into the role of teammate, best friend? 

He tried to picture it. Sitting through Sid’s bonding ceremony. Watching him kiss someone else, smile at someone else, become a father to someone else’s children. The arc of Sid’s life bending away from his, drawing him further and further from Zhenya. 

“Maybe it’s not worst thing,” he said. “You know? Maybe here I’m like—stuck in past, can’t move on. Maybe change is good.” 

Sid’s jaw was tight. “I can’t believe you’re—Geno, we’re not talking about this. You’re not going anywhere.” 

“Sid,” Zhenya said, but Sid was already getting up. He grabbed his swim trunks off the floor, his back to Zhenya. His shoulders were a tense angry line. 

“It’s getting late,” he said. “We should get back.” 

Zhenya felt exhausted, suddenly, and angry with Sid: for avoiding the topic all season and then springing it on him here, ruining a perfectly good afternoon. 

“Fine,” he said. “We go.” 

*

He woke to the sound of Sid clattering around downstairs: Zhenya’s first indication that all was not forgiven. He groaned and flung an arm over his face to block out the too-bright morning light. 

Sid had been frostily silent the whole way home and had gone to bed after dinner, claiming a headache. Zhenya had stayed up far too late sulking, watching mindless TV in the living room and browsing the forums obsessively on his phone. He had only managed a few hours of sleep, and had that hollowed-out, half-collapsed feeling in his chest, like someone had prized open his ribs in the night and scraped around in his insides. 

Nothing had changed. It was the fourth day, and he didn’t feel any different. 

He pulled on a pair of track shorts and made his way downstairs. Sid was standing in the kitchen surrounded by bags of groceries, more food than they could possibly eat in a month. 

Zhenya blinked at him. “Sid, where you get?” 

“I ordered a delivery,” Sid said from behind the open fridge door. “If you want to help you can start by putting those away.” 

Zhenya did not want to help. He wanted to turn around and go right back upstairs, to hide away in his bedroom. This was his least favorite version of Sid—angry with him and refusing to admit or acknowledge it. 

“I can’t eat?” 

“It’s a little late for breakfast,” Sid said tightly. Zhenya glanced at the clock over the stove: it was a quarter to ten, but whatever. He was getting the feeling he might need to pick his battles today. 

He escaped out to the pool, to eat the grapefruit and the bowl of cereal he’d scavenged under Sid’s judgmental eye in peace. He was annoyed and baffled at Sid treating this like some kind of catered gala event, instead of a few friends coming by for beers and hamburgers. 

Sid couldn’t relax: that was his problem. He had never gone with the flow a day in his life. He believed in checklists and ten-year plans, and found it intolerable when someone deviated from the play, when they said or did something he hadn’t meticulously diagrammed out. Now he would spend the whole day making them both miserable and stressed, all because Zhenya had indicated a less than total commitment to Sid’s vision of how the world should be. 

He took his plate inside.

“They forgot the sparkling water,” Sid said. “Fuck.” 

“Why we need?” Zhenya said. “Have beer, have tap water. Who cares?” 

“I care,” Sid snapped. “Will you go get it or not?” 

Zhenya was not going to drive to the grocery store, which was a good twenty minutes away and required navigating the freeway, just to get sparkling water. His friends weren’t that bothered. They would drink whatever was on hand, and they would like it, because he was paying for it. 

“Sid, why we even do?” he said, frustrated. “It’s too much work. I tell you this.”

“Yes, you’ve made it perfectly clear that you don’t want this to happen,” Sid said tightly. “Fine, I’ll do it myself. Where are the keys?” 

“I don’t put you on rental,” Zhenya said, and Sid gave him a look so quelling he shut up and went to go find them.

Sid was gone for a long time, long enough that Zhenya began to feel a little chastened. He rearranged the vegetables on the party platter Sid had ordered and transferred the ranch dip from its plastic container into a porcelain bowl. 

As far as offerings went, it probably wouldn’t pacify Sid. Zhenya decided to cut his losses and escape to the gym. If Sid was going to be pissy with him about it, well: he was the one who thought Zhenya should do what the coaches wanted. 

* 

At five o’clock Zhenya went upstairs and changed his shirt three times, before putting the first one on again. What did it matter if there was a small stain on the left sleeve? Sid was the one fussing over everything being perfect. Zhenya didn’t care what his friends thought. 

Sid was down by the pool, fiddling with the grill. Zhenya stood behind the curtains and watched him for a few moments through the window. He was wearing a shirt Zhenya liked on him: it was a little tight through the shoulders, and pulled nicely over his chest. He’d even put on real shoes instead of the slides he practically lived in. His hair had far too much gel in it, and his expression was stiff but resolved, as if he were about to face a major press conference, or possibly a firing squad. 

He was impossible. Zhenya wanted, in equal measure, to claw Sid’s eyes out, and to go down and make him laugh, so he wouldn’t look so grim. 

Ilya and his bondmate arrived first, with their two eldest children, who made a beeline for the pool. Max brought a handle of vodka and three of his coworkers; Zhenya forgave him the latter when he saw the label on the former. Then came Kolya, and Tasha with her girlfriend, and the Ivanovs with their three small towheaded children, and last of all Anya and her newest boyfriend, an omega Zhenya liked but thought privately was too sweet-tempered for her. Sid shook hands and repeated everyone’s names, making polite small talk about work and the weather, and then retreated to the safety of the grill, gripping his tongs like he was afraid someone might swoop in and dispossess him of them. 

Zhenya left him to it: Sid was capable of fending for himself, and didn’t like to be hovered over. And anyway, he was busy making sure everyone had drinks, and chirping Anya for wearing those ridiculous stilettos to a backyard party, and occasionally flinging a small child into the pool, while the rest crowded around him shrieking with delight and clamoring to be next. It was a good party, noisy and full of laughter. Someone put music on after a while: Russian pop mostly, with the occasional Miley Cyrus single mixed in. 

Everyone liked Sid, and made a point of telling him so. It was clear what they thought, and the implication made him uncomfortable. He had never brought anyone to meet them before. Zhenya’s usual partners weren’t the kind of alphas he intended to see again, or wanted within ten miles of the people he actually cared about. 

“He’s quite a catch,” Anya observed, sipping her cocktail and eyeing Sid across the pool. “Especially for someone cursed with your unfortunate personality. I suppose it’s the money.” 

“And I see you’ve sunk your claws into a new victim,” Zhenya said. 

“Oh, I think Dima’s quite satisfied,” she said with a filthy little smirk, and Zhenya clapped his hands over his ears. 

“No details, for the love of God,” he said. “There are children present. You’ll scar them for life.” 

Anya laughed. “Very well, I’ll spare you. But truly, Zhenya. It’s good to see you happy.” 

Zhenya sobered a little. “It’s not like that.” He looked over at Sid, who was talking with one of Max’s coworkers at the grill, his sunglasses pushed up in his hair. The bridge of his nose was red from the sun. “We’re fucking, that’s all. It won’t last the season.” 

“Oh, Zhenya,” Anya said. “Have you always been such a fool, or is it the head injuries talking? In all the years I’ve known you, it’s always been Sidney this, Sidney that. It’s a privilege, really, to finally meet the man who hung the moon and stars. You have him at last.”

Zhenya stiffened. “We’re teammates,” he said. “It’s easy, it’s fun. We both know what it is.” 

Anya was quiet, tapping a manicured nail against the side of her glass. “Not everyone wants a bond, Zhenya.” 

“Do you?” he asked bluntly. 

“Well—yes,” she said. “Someday, yes. But that’s not—” 

Zhenya cut her off. “I should go check the ice,” he said. “I think we’re running low. Enjoy the party, Anya.” 

*

He went upstairs to the bedroom and closed the door behind him, shutting out the noise from below. He sat down on the edge of the bed and pressed the heels of his palms against his closed eyes, digging in until he saw stars. He felt worn thin, and so tired he wanted to lie down on the bed and sleep away the rest of the week, maybe the rest of the season. 

The bedroom door opened. He dropped his hands. 

“Oh,” Sid said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—” 

“No, it’s okay,” Zhenya said, standing up. “You need something?” 

Sid stood in the doorway. “No,” he said. “I didn’t see you come up. I’ll leave you alone.” 

There was a strange note in his voice. Zhenya looked at him more closely, and felt a little alarmed. Sid looked as exhausted as he felt, his face wan and a little pinched, a tightness around his eyes. 

“Sid,” he said. “Something happen?” 

“No,” Sid said. “I’m fine. Everything’s fine.” 

He was such a liar. Zhenya got up and went over to him, putting his hands on Sid’s shoulders and rubbing them. Sid was stiff and awkward, avoiding his eyes. 

“Not reporter, Sid,” he said. “Can say.” 

Sid blew out a long shaky breath. “I don’t know what I expected,” he said. “I had this whole—idea, in my head, of what this was going to be like. And it’s just—” He broke off, shaking his head. “Forget it. I’m being stupid. I don’t think I slept very well.” 

Zhenya didn’t quite grasp it all, but he understood enough to feel swamped with guilt. It was clear that Sid, for unfathomable reasons of his own, had wanted the party to go well. He had sunk the whole day into worrying over it: all for Zhenya’s friends, people he didn’t know and wasn’t likely to meet again. And Zhenya had repaid his care by abandoning Sid, at sea among strangers, adrift in a language that wasn’t his own. 

“Oh, Sid,” he said, and pulled him into a tentative hug. He half expected some resistance—Sid could be strange, sometimes, about being comforted—but instead Sid came easily into his arms, and leaned his head against Zhenya’s chest. Zhenya held him for a moment, feeling oddly unsure. 

“Sid,” he said gently. “What’s wrong? Party is good, everybody happy, have good time.” 

“Yeah,” Sid said. “I don’t know. I just felt weird for a second, that’s all.” 

“It’s okay,” Zhenya said. “I see you stuck at grill, talk with Kostya. He’s so boring, always talk about taxes. Maybe it’s trauma for you.” 

“Traumatic,” Sid said, a little thickly, and laughed. “No, he was really nice. They all are, Geno. You have good friends. I can tell they really care about you.” 

“No, they just pry,” Zhenya said darkly. “Want to eat my food, drink my vodka, put nose in my business.” 

“I think that’s just how friends are,” Sid said, and then was quiet for a long moment, like he was thinking about what he wanted to say next. Zhenya wasn’t looking forward to a resumption of hostilities, but he tried to brace himself. 

But all Sid said was, “This shirt looks good on you.” 

“There’s stain.” Zhenya gestured at his sleeve. 

“You can’t really see it,” Sid said. “We could put something on it, see if it’ll come up.” 

“Maybe later,” Zhenya said. “We go down now, see party, okay? Have to make sure Anya’s not steal silverware.” 

*

He stuck close to Sid for the rest of the night, bringing him beer after beer, translating for him as the grownups got drunker and more raucous, their patience with English faltering. The parents with small children went home first, and Zhenya gave big smacking cheek kisses to all of the little ones, promising to bring them presents next time he was in town. 

Anya and her boyfriend were the last to leave. She gave Sid a big hug, wrapping her arms around him and whispering something in his ear before pulling back. Sid looked a little flustered, but he was smiling. 

“Begone, woman,” Zhenya said in Russian. “Get out of my house.” 

“It’s my pleasure,” Anya said. “Your manners are awful, it’s like being hosted by wild boars. I’ll be sure to call your mother and give her a full report.” 

“You wouldn’t dare,” Zhenya said, but he shook Dima’s hand politely and let Anya give him a peck on the cheek. There would be no hard feelings: they were old friends, and had weathered worse. 

It was a relief to have the house to themselves again, though it felt much quieter and emptier with everyone gone. Zhenya would have been happy to postpone cleanup until the morning, but Sid had already gone out back, and was shoveling plates and cans into a trashbag. 

Sid seemed to be feeling better. There was color in his cheeks again, and he seemed happy, and maybe a little drunk, humming a little to himself under his breath. Between the two of them the work went quickly, and when they were mostly finished Zhenya dug the expensive vodka Max had brought out of the freezer, and poured them both a generous helping. 

He stretched out on one of the pool loungers and looked up at the velvet darkness of the night sky. Lying down made him feel drunker; his head spun, just a little. But he felt calmer, too, as if some unquiet thing inside him had settled at last. 

“Come here,” he said. “Stop cleaning and lie down with me, just for a minute.” 

“What are you saying?” Sid asked. He sat down on the edge of the lounger and looked down at him, smiling. “You’re a little drunk, aren’t you?” 

“No,” Zhenya said in English. He took Sid’s hand in his and kissed the backs of his knuckles, one by one. 

He let himself see it, for one heartbreaking moment: a life together, a shared home. They would have parties like this, full of laughter and light, half a dozen children underfoot. In time his friends would become Sid’s friends, and Sid’s his, the strands of their lives woven together. And when the guests had gone home, when the house was quiet, it would be the two of them, like this. It wouldn’t always be easy. But they were used to hard work. 

He drew Sid’s hand to his face, and pressed his cheek against Sid’s palm. 

“Leave me,” he said. “Leave me, and let it be over. I’m so tired of waiting for it to come.” 

“I can’t understand you,” Sid said, but he looked troubled: maybe he had caught the tone of it, if not the meaning. Zhenya was drunk, and so foolish, and Sid could be perceptive, sometimes, at just the wrong moments. 

It wasn’t going to work. He understood that now, with a cold, leaden certainty. 

He would never have a heat. Never have children of his own body. Never bond: never know someone that intimately, heart to heart, soul to soul. Zhenya had thought he was old enough to not care so much anymore. He had put those feelings away a long time ago. But he had opened the door to hope again. He had raised the floodgates, and now it was all rushing in, a torrent of grief and rage that couldn’t be stemmed, a yearning so deep he would drown in it. 

He was tired of being angry. It wouldn’t change anything; it never had. 

He kissed Sid’s palm. 

“Please,” he said. “Let’s go to bed.” 

* 

Upstairs he took his clothes off and lay down on the bed. Sid lay stretched out next to him, looking at him, stroking his hair. His expression was serious and kind, and Zhenya knew that here, in the dark, Sid would give him anything he asked for, if it was in his power to give. 

He rolled on top of him, and settled over him, letting Sid take the full weight of his body. He kissed him for a long time: Sid’s mouth, and then his throat, soft, open-mouthed kisses. He felt the press of him against his hip. 

“Sid,” he said, and drew himself up. He couldn’t say it. He took Sid’s hand and guided it between his legs, lifting up a little, pressing Sid’s fingertips against him. 

Sid drew in a breath. 

“Geno,” he said. “We don’t have to. I know you don’t—” 

“I want,” Zhenya said. “Please. I want you do. I think about, so much.” 

Sid looked troubled. “I don’t know if we should.” 

“Please,” Zhenya said again, and leaned forward, folding himself in half. He pressed his forehead to Sid’s chest. He could feel something like a sob building in his chest, though his eyes were dry. “Please, please.” 

“Hey, you’re okay.” Sid slid a hand down Zhenya’s back, soothing him. “It’s okay. We can—we’ll go slow, all right? We can always stop.” He shifted a little, and then, carefully, he rolled them over, so that Zhenya was lying on his back. 

“Wait a minute,” he said, kissing Zhenya’s nose. “Just stay there, okay?” 

He got up off the bed and went into the bathroom. A moment later he was back, settling between Zhenya’s legs. 

“We’ll go slow,” he said again. “I want it to feel good. If you want to stop, we’ll stop.” 

“Yes,” Zhenya said. “It’s good,” and then he shivered, because Sid was touching him, the pads of his fingers wet with lube. 

True to his word, Sid went slow, almost agonizingly so—opening him up on his fingers, watching Zhenya’s face for any flicker of pain or distress. It had been a long time since someone else had touched him there, but Zhenya’s body remembered the fullness of it, the tender ache, and craved more. Sid gave him two fingers, and then three, stroking inside of him, his thumb petting at his stretched rim. Zhenya rolled his hips, taking him deeper, wanting more. 

“Sid, I’m ready,” he said.

Sid kissed Zhenya’s hip, the fading shape of an old bruise, and then drew his fingers out. He hesitated. “Should I—I don’t have a condom.” 

“It’s okay,” Zhenya said. “I can’t, you know?” 

“Okay,” Sid said. He took a breath, like he was steadying himself. “How do you—” 

“Like this,” Zhenya said, and hooked his leg around Sid’s waist, tilting his hips up. 

Everything felt dreamlike and slow. Sid sank into him so slowly, so carefully, and it was so much: the fullness, the pressure. It was good: it was so much better than he remembered. 

“You’re so good,” Sid said. “God. You feel so good. I can’t believe it.” 

He held him, rocking slowly into him. Zhenya felt tears prick at the corners of his eyes, hot and sudden. 

The first time they’d fucked—

That was how he thought of it, when he let himself think of it at all. For a long time he had needed the harshness of the phrase to frame the memory, to wall it safely in. That was how he wanted it to have been—rough, and fumbling, a physical experience emptied of meaning. A body, and another body, and lust raging like a wildfire between them, consuming all that it touched, leaving ash in its wake. 

It hadn’t been like that. 

They’d lost to Detroit in game six. Seryozha and his family left for Russia two days after, but Zhenya stayed a few more days in the house alone. Sid was taking it hard. He had holed up in the Lemieuxs’ guest house, speaking to no one, and then on the third day Zhenya answered the door and found him standing there, looking wrecked, wanting to be held. 

They had both been so nervous. Sid had used too much lube, spilling half the bottle over the sheets, and kept apologizing until Zhenya pulled him down and kissed him quiet. He hadn’t felt insecure, or ashamed. How could he, when Sid touched him so reverently, when he looked at him like that: like he was scared, almost, of how much he wanted Zhenya; of how much Zhenya trusted him. Sid had whispered his name, over and over—not _Geno_ , but the one Zhenya had taught him during those long afternoons of kissing and touching, until Sid’s mouth learned the unfamiliar shape of it. 

He had flown home the next day in a dream. Sid drove him to the airport. They hadn’t kissed in the car, but Sid had held his hand very tightly and told him he would call. 

He had waited. He had waited, and waited, all through that long summer. Surely he must have known, or suspected, but—there was some reason. There had to be some reason. Something had happened, and when he got back Sid would tell him, and Zhenya would forgive him everything. 

Then he had turned up to the team picnic, in the sky-blue shirt Sid always said he liked, his hair combed down, his heart fluttering. And Army had slung an arm around his shoulder and said, in a singsong voice: _Have you heard? Sid’s got a_ girl- _friend._

Zhenya shuddered. He felt hot and shivery, his skin tight like a bad sunburn. He felt raw and exposed, cracked open. Sid was holding him, moving inside him. It was everything he had wanted, everything he had longed for, and it would never be enough. 

What had he thought? That he could write it over. That he could change the ending. That he could make Sid choose him, this time, and love him, the way he longed to be loved. 

He put a hand over his eyes. His face was wet. 

“Geno,” Sid said, and stilled. “I’m hurting you.” 

“No,” he said. The pain was in the past. This was only scar tissue: the stiffness of a wound that had never healed properly. “Don’t stop. Please.” 

Sid was touching him now, stroking him, and Zhenya realized he was close, closer than he had thought. He felt his orgasm building, coiling low in his gut. He was at the edge now: almost over. There was nothing left to cling to. 

“It’s okay,” Sid murmured, “you’re okay, I’ve got you,” and Zhenya shuddered, and closed his eyes, and let go. 

*

“Hey,” Sid said softly. 

Zhenya blinked up at him, disoriented. It took him a moment to remember where he was, and what had happened. There was a sour taste in his mouth. His head was throbbing—not the familiar ache of a hangover, but something different, and somehow worse: a pressure behind his eyes, like he’d cried and cried. 

But he hadn’t. He felt sure of that, at least: thank god. 

Sid was sitting on the edge of the bed next to him, looking down at him. He was dressed, his hair damp and curling from the shower, and it made Zhenya suddenly and unpleasantly aware of his own nakedness. He sat up a little gingerly, pulling the sheet over him. He felt tender, and a little sore. There was an unpleasant stickiness between his legs. 

“Why don’t you wake me?” he said, a little sharply. “It’s so late.”

“Thought you could use the sleep.” Sid shifted on the bed next to him and put a tentative hand on his back. Zhenya tried not to flinch. “You feeling okay?” 

“Yes, fine.” Zhenya couldn’t look at him. After a moment Sid drew his hand back. 

“I made us reservations,” he said. “At, um—Anya said there was a brunch place you liked. We don’t have to go.” 

“I need shower,” Zhenya said abruptly. 

He got up and went into the bathroom. God, he looked a mess: washed-up and greasy, his eyes bloodshot. He started the shower and rummaged around in his toiletries bag for his ibuprofen. 

His hand closed on the bottle of pills the doctor had given him. Zhenya unscrewed the cap and looked inside: three left. He tipped them into his palm and choked them down dry, swallowing hard around the lump in his throat. 

Fuck. _Fuck._

*

They drove downtown in silence. He could feel Sid looking at him, but Zhenya kept his eyes on the road. He didn’t want to talk about it. 

Sid must have pulled some strings. The place was usually booked up even during the week, and the hostess led them right up to a table on the rooftop bar. 

Their waiter was a young, nervous-looking omega who kept glancing at Sid. When he set down their waters he set one of them down on the edge of a fork, sending it spilling over onto the tablecloth. Sid leapt up, pushing his chair back. 

The boy looked mortified. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said, scrambling to mop up the water with one of the cloth napkins. “I’m so sorry. I’ll just—if you could just—”

He looked around helplessly at the bustling rooftop: there were no open tables. 

“It’s okay,” Sid said. “Just water. No harm done, eh? Do you have more napkins?” 

He went with him over to the hostesses’ station, leaving Zhenya at the table alone. Zhenya watched the boy hand Sid a stack of napkins. They stood talking for a moment, Sid smiling at him, listening. 

Zhenya opened the menu and stared blankly down at it. The sun was too bright, or maybe the print was too small. The words swam before his eyes. Everything seemed so loud, like someone had turned up the volume dial to almost unbearable levels. The women at the table next to him were laughing. Further down a man was berating someone: his son, maybe, for failing to sit still. Forks clinked against plates. A car honked somewhere in the distance, and then another, a clamor that seemed almost unbearable. 

Why had Sid brought him here? Out of pity, maybe: because Zhenya had cried. 

He was angry, suddenly—an awful, directionless rage that welled up in his chest, almost choking him. He wanted to smash something: to fling his saucer down on the ground and bring his foot down on it again and again, shattering it into a thousand shards. He hated Sid for bringing him here. He hated Sid for coming at all, for sleeping in his bed and eating in his kitchen and wandering the city with him playing tourist. Miami had been his refuge, his escape, and now he would be unable to look at anything, unable to go anywhere, without remembering this awful week. 

Sid returned to the table at last, and began to mop up the spilled water. 

“You get his number?” Zhenya said. 

“What?” Sid sat down, pulling his chair in. “Whose number?” 

“Waiter,” Zhenya said. “You talk to him so long, I think, maybe I go, leave you two.” 

Sid stared at him like he’d grown a second head. “He’s a fan,” he said. “He was freaking out about the water. I told him it was no big deal. I signed a receipt for him.” 

Zhenya felt a surge of rage. His head was throbbing. 

“You _flirt_ ,” he hissed. “Maybe I can’t smell, okay, but I’m not blind, Sid. Not stupid. You want him? Fine. Have him.” 

Sid’s expression did something strange, flickering from confusion to hurt to anger. 

“I’m here with you,” he said. “I’m sitting here with you, and you think I’m—what, trying to fuck our teenage waiter?” 

Zhenya slammed his menu shut. He leaned forward across the table. 

“Sid, why you here?” he said. “Why you even come? Why you not stay home, have rut, like everybody?” 

Sid faltered for a moment. “Because you asked me to come,” he said. “You invited me.” 

“So it’s favor?” Zhenya said. “You feel sorry, Sid? Think oh, poor Zhenya, so lonely, so sad, spend bye week all alone?” 

“No!” Sid said. “What are you even talking about? Why are you so angry with me?” 

He stopped suddenly, as if something were just occurring to him. 

“Geno,” he said. “If you—if I did something wrong, last night—”

It was unbearable. Zhenya felt a wave of anger so intense it made him dizzy, black spots dancing in the corner of his vision. Sid was saying something, but Zhenya couldn’t hear him: there was a strange buzzing in his ears, like radio static cranked up too high. 

He needed to get out. He needed to be somewhere, anywhere else. 

He stood abruptly. 

He heard Sid say his name, sharply enough to cut through the static, but he was already turning away, heading for the stairs. He stumbled halfway down, and had to grab for the railing to right himself: the staircase seemed narrower than before, the walls closer. He needed—to get somewhere. There was somewhere he had to be. 

The downstairs dining room stretched out before him, a labyrinth of tables and chairs. Had the floors here always been so uneven? Surely they hadn’t always tilted like that, heaving beneath his feet like the deck of a ship. He turned in the direction he thought led outside, pushing through the swinging door. 

“Sir?” someone said, sounding alarmed. It was their waiter. Zhenya was—in the kitchen. There were people there: vague, blurred shapes, standing frozen looking at him, but none of them had faces. 

What was this place? What was wrong with their faces? Suddenly he felt frightened. 

“I can’t find my way,” he said. “It’s too confusing. I can’t find my way out.” 

“I’m sorry,” the boy said. “Mr. Malkin, sir—can you say it in English?” 

“Is he drunk?” someone said, and then there was a lot of noise, very close. He felt someone’s hand close on his arm, and he jerked away, stumbling sideways. His leg felt weak, suddenly, his bad knee unable to support his weight. He tried to catch himself, but there was nothing to take hold of, only empty air. 

He was on the floor, his cheek pressed against the cold tile. He was sitting up, propped against the gleaming silver refrigerator. He was trying to stand, and someone was forcing him back down, their hands on his shoulders. It was a stranger. No: it was Sid. 

It was Sid. Zhenya’s vision was swimming still, but he could hear him. Sid was saying his name, over and over again, his voice strangely urgent. _Geno. Geno._

“Sid?” he tried to say, but his voice sounded strange and garbled. He was so frightened. 

“You’re okay,” Sid said. “You’re okay, Geno. Can you look at me? Don’t close your eyes.” He turned his head and spoke to someone in a sharp voice. Zhenya was drifting again. 

“Geno, look at me,” Sid said, a note of command in it, and Zhenya’s eyes flew open again, and suddenly he understood. 

It was here. It was happening. His heart leapt in his chest. 

“How long until the ambulance gets here?” Sid said sharply. 

No: what? They had to go home, to—Zhenya couldn’t think of the place, but there was somewhere they needed to be. They had to go now. Sid was here, and it was happening, and it wasn’t too late. 

His head hurt so much, a throbbing pain, but it would pass. He had been so patient, for so long: he could wait a little longer. It would pass, and the pleasure would come, and he would feel good then. He would feel _right._

He didn’t need a doctor; he only needed Sid. Why didn’t Sid know that? He was an alpha. He should know. 

“Sid,” he said. It was an effort to get the words out, to remember the English, but it was important. Nothing could be more important. “Sid, I think it’s heat.” 

He felt Sid draw in a sharp breath. 

“Oh, Geno,” he said. “G—I’m sorry. I don’t think it’s a heat.” 

*  
*  
*

For a long stretch of time, very little made sense. 

After, he couldn’t remember how they had gotten to the hospital, or much of what had happened in that first bewildering hour. There were strange patchy gaps in his memory, places where things didn’t quite cohere. 

He should have been afraid. Everything was so confusing, a jumble of light and sound and meaningless words that he knew were English but couldn’t quite work out in his head. But he wasn’t. Sid was with him. Sid was talking to him in a low soothing voice, and to the doctors too, in a sharper one. Sid was holding his hand, gripping it so tightly that at one point it had felt like he was trying to grind the bones to a fine powder. It was oddly comforting. 

Sid would take care of him. He would handle everything: that was what Sid did. 

Somewhere around hour two, Zhenya had begun to come back to himself. He still felt strange, like his head was packed with cotton wool, but he could translate what people were saying again, and could answer the doctor’s questions. Sid had stopped holding his hand. There were tests, and scans, and more tests, and every time they wheeled him back in Sid was there, pacing a hole in the floor, ready to grill the nurse for details. 

Sid drove them home from the hospital. It was dark out, and the silence inside the car was total. Zhenya rested his head against the window and watched the city lights fly past. 

“Sid, _stop_ ,” he said sharply, straightening up, and Sid swore, slamming on the brakes. He flung an arm out across Zhenya’s chest, pushing him back hard against the seat. 

“Fuck,” he said, and took a shuddering breath, and then another, staring up at the red light. After a moment he released his death grip on the steering wheel. 

Zhenya had never seen him like this. He was angry, but also brittle, somehow, as if the lightest touch might shatter him. 

“Can yell,” he said. 

“I’m not going to yell at you,” Sid said, in a deathly calm voice. “You just had a stroke.” 

“It’s not—real stroke.” Zhenya couldn’t remember the word the doctor had used. 

“Oh, never mind then,” Sid said. “That makes me feel so much better.” 

Zhenya shut up. The light turned green. 

At home Sid took the keys from him and let them both in the front door, as if Zhenya couldn’t be trusted with even this simple task. 

“Sit down,” he said. 

Zhenya went and sat at the table. He watched Sid move around the kitchen, taking out plates and glasses, opening the fridge. His movements were short and strangely jerky. 

“Eat,” he said, putting down a plate full of sandwiches. 

Zhenya wasn’t hungry, but it was better than talking. He ate two and a half of the sandwiches, chewing slowly to draw it out, while Sid stood watching him with his arms folded across his chest. Finally he pushed the plate away. 

“Sid,” he said. “It’s late.” 

“It’s not even seven,” Sid said. “And you didn’t have a _real stroke_ , so I’m sure you don’t need to go to bed.” 

Zhenya picked at the remaining half sandwich. It would probably buy him another few minutes. 

“Is it true?” Sid said. “Did you have those shots, like the doctor said?” 

“It’s one time,” Zhenya said. “It’s not work, I don’t do again.” 

Sid sat down heavily in the chair across from him. 

“Geno,” he said, his voice almost pleading. “ _Why?_ If you’d—if that had been a real stroke, it could’ve ended your career. How could that possibly be worth it?” 

Of course Sid would think of hockey first, and the possible effect on the team. That was what Sid cared about. That was how and why Zhenya had always mattered to him, when it came down to it. 

“Sid, it’s fine,” he said wearily. “I don’t even miss game. Can play, no problem.” 

“That’s not—Geno, look at me,” Sid said. “I didn’t mean it like that.” 

Zhenya didn’t want to look at him. He was so tired of this conversation. 

“It’s okay,” he said. “You’re captain, Sid, have to think about team. I know. You do good job, take care, I’m okay.” 

“I don’t take care of you because I’m the captain,” Sid said. “I—we’re friends too, Geno.” 

Zhenya leaned forward, his shoulders hunched. Yes. They were friends, and maybe it would stop hurting someday, the knowledge that Sid would never see him as anything more. Ten years hadn’t done it. But in three years his contract was up, and maybe he could go somewhere far away, somewhere warm, where he could kill the last few years of his career playing increasingly mediocre hockey. He could be friends with Sid then. They could—send each other Christmas cards, or something. 

Sid made an abortive move towards him, as if he were going to cover Zhenya’s hand with his own. Zhenya flinched away. 

“I can’t,” he said. “Sid, we can’t do.” 

Sid was quiet for a moment. “Yeah,” he said, sounding a little unsteady. “I guess we shouldn’t.” 

Zhenya remembered Sid’s ashen face in the restaurant. He said, with effort: “It’s good, Sid. It’s fun, you know? We have good time, fun time. You don’t do wrong. It’s me, you know? I think, maybe medicine work, maybe it’s fix me. But no. It’s not work. I can’t fix.” 

“What do you mean, the medicine could fix you?” Sid said. 

Zhenya heard his own voice saying: _Sid, I think it’s heat._ He remembered, with a sudden and pitiless clarity, the look on Sid’s face, when he’d told him it wasn't. 

Shame curdled in his stomach like sour milk. It was hard to breathe. 

“Sid, I’m not like—real omega,” he said, forcing the words out. “I don’t have heat, don’t smell right. Can’t have baby. Can’t—can’t bond. I try everything, you know? Shot is last try. And it doesn’t fix.” 

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” Sid said fiercely. “You’re not broken. You don’t need to be fixed.” 

Zhenya couldn’t look at him; could only breathe through the spasm of pain. 

“Maybe I think,” he said. “When I’m young, stupid. I think, maybe it’s not so important—can’t bond, can’t have baby. Maybe I find right person.” He looked away, feeling cracked open, exposed. “But I’m wrong, you know? You don’t want me.”

“Geno,” Sid said, but Zhenya shrugged it off. He didn’t want to see the look on Sid’s face: the pity, the useless guilt. 

“It’s long time ago,” he said. “It’s past, you know? And maybe it’s good thing. It’s good I know.” 

It was true. He might have wasted so much more time, if Sid hadn’t—if he’d thought things could be different. He might’ve gotten his heart broken again and again. He might have sunk years of his life into loving Sid, or some other alpha who would set him aside when they got tired of him. It was better to know. 

Sid got up abruptly. He went over to the sink, and stood there for a long moment, his back to Zhenya. Then he turned and looked at him, his expression blank. 

“That’s why you did it,” he said. “That’s why you risked your career, your—god, Geno, your _life_. Because you thought that’s what I wanted.” 

Zhenya said nothing. 

“You’ve been so angry this whole year,” Sid said, almost to himself. “I knew it was because of me, I just didn’t know why. I thought you were probably going to end things, pretty soon. But then you asked me here, and I thought maybe I was wrong. I wanted to be wrong.” 

He came around the table again and sat down. He folded his hands, looking down at them. 

“When they gave me the C, Mario had a conversation with me,” he said. “He said I was the face of the organization now, and that meant there were certain expectations, certain responsibilities. I guess, um. I guess we hadn’t been as subtle as we thought. He said it might feel like it was my business, but if it ever got out, a lot of people were going to see it as their business, too, and it would look pretty bad. Because I was the captain, and an alpha, but also, uh—” 

“Because I can’t bond,” Zhenya said. “So it’s not, like, serious thing.” 

Judging from the way Sid kept glancing down as he spoke, he thought Mario’s phrasing had probably been considerably blunter. 

Sid nodded. “I was just—god, Geno, I was scared and stupid, and I really, really didn’t want to fuck it up. I wanted to be the right pick, you know? I wanted to do the right things, and have the right kind of life, and be exactly the kind of captain they wanted me to be. So that’s what I did, or tried to do. And it worked, sort of. Maybe I wasn’t exactly happy, a lot of the time, but I thought that was probably how it was supposed to be. Sometimes you didn’t get what you wanted, or who you wanted.” 

He blew out a breath. “And then—I don’t know. Something changed. I was turning thirty, and everyone kept asking when Kathy and I were going to get bonded. We just kept putting it off, and putting it off. There was always some reason, you know? The timing wasn’t right. We were going to do it in the spring. I don’t think either of us wanted to admit that maybe we just didn’t want to be bonded. 

“And then, the last time we won the Cup—we were in the locker room, and I looked over at you. You were yelling and crying, and you were completely drenched in champagne, and you were the only person I wanted to talk to. The only person I wanted to see. I wanted to go home with you. I wanted us to go home together, to be together, and I thought, what am I doing? Why am I trying to make this work with somebody else?” 

Zhenya shifted in his chair, uneasy. “Sid,” he said. 

“I know,” Sid said. “I know you don’t—I’m just trying to explain.” 

“You never say,” Zhenya said. He remembered that night too, and in his memory of it there was nothing different about the way Sid had looked at him, or touched him. And Sid had been with Kathy for a long time after: a year, at least. 

“I guess I told myself it was too late,” Sid said. “It had been so long. I didn’t even know if you felt the same way. And I was afraid that maybe I was just running from my problems with Kath.” 

He looked up. “We got bonded that summer,” he said. “We didn’t tell anyone. I think we both knew it was a bad idea. But we’d been together for so long, and it felt like we had to give it a shot, you know? Everybody says you feel so close, after. You know what they’re feeling, and you’re supposed to know how to fix whatever's wrong. But I already knew how she felt. I knew she wasn’t happy, and she knew I wasn’t, and neither of us wanted to fix it anymore. So we broke the bond this summer, and then we broke up.” 

“And you come find me,” Zhenya said, a little flatly. Ten years later, and he’d been right where Sid left him, ready to be picked up again. 

“I thought about waiting,” Sid said. “But I’d already wasted so much time.” 

He was looking at Zhenya, his expression earnest and open. He was telling the truth, Zhenya thought, or rather, he thought he was telling the truth. He thought he was ready. 

It would be so easy to tell him yes. To give him exactly what he wanted. 

Zhenya thought for a long moment, trying to piece together the words. 

“Sid,” he said haltingly. “Last time—I’m not okay, after. For long time after. We’re together lots, we kiss, laugh lots, it’s good. It’s exciting. When I have sex with you, it’s first time for me. It’s very—” 

Zhenya stopped. He wasn’t sure Sid got to know that yet, what it had meant to him. 

“And then you stop,” he said. “You don’t say to me, you don’t explain. I come back, I find out at _picnic_. And it’s like, whole year, we don’t really talk. I think: maybe you forget. Or maybe—you laugh at me, behind back, with other guys. Think I’m so stupid, for think it’s real.” 

“I didn’t,” Sid said, wide-eyed. “I never would’ve.” 

Zhenya half shrugged. “Sid, how I’m know? Maybe I know now, trust now, but then—I’m just kid, you know? On ice, guys say things to me, all the time. Say I’m frigid, say I’m slut, say no smell makes them sick. You tell me now, Mario say things too.” He caught a glimpse of Sid’s guilty expression, and said, “Sid, I don’t tell you because I want make you feel so bad, so sad for me.” 

“I know,” Sid said. “I just—I’m sorry, Geno. I know it doesn’t change anything, but I’m not proud of how I handled it.” 

Zhenya took a deep breath. “So it’s hard for me,” he said. “Okay? You say nice thing, thing I want to hear very much: oh, Geno, I see you, I want you, I want be with you. But I don’t know, Sid. Maybe you feel lonely, want now, but then one day—I find out at picnic.” 

Sid looked down at his hands. “Okay,” he said, a little shakily. “Yeah. I, um. I can understand that.” He hesitated, then said: “I know you don’t—you probably don’t even want this, not with me. But I’ve been reading a lot, about things people do when they can’t bond, or don’t want a bond. Some people get married. It’s sort of like a bonding ceremony, I guess, without a matebond.” 

“Yes,” Zhenya said, a little amused. “I know what marry is.” He was touched at the thought of Sid researching—taking detailed notes, probably, as he diagrammed out the possible shapes of Zhenya’s future. 

Sid went a little pink, but he forged on. “And you can have kids. Lots of people adopt, or use surrogates. People even do it alone, without a partner. It’s becoming a lot more common. But uh, I mean, obviously you don’t have to want any of those things.” 

“Sid,” Zhenya said gently. “Maybe I want. But it’s not easy, you know? It’s not easy, trust you. It’s not easy, get marry, adopt baby. What if friends say, oh, Sid, why you do? Or parents say, Sid, you don’t want bond? Maybe Mario say, oh, it’s not look good, it’s bad for team, bad for hockey. They talk, talk in ear, maybe you start thinking they right.” 

“I know that.” There was a stubborn set to Sid’s jaw Zhenya recognized. “I do, Geno. I know you think this is just a whim or something—because I’m lonely, or I’m bored. But I’ve thought about it a lot.”

He got up from the kitchen table. He came around to Zhenya’s side, and sank down to his knees in front of him. He took Zhenya’s hands in his, and this time Zhenya let him. 

“I wouldn’t be choosing a life without a bond,” Sid said, looking up at him. “I’d be choosing a life with you. I want to be with you, Geno. I want to meet all your friends and learn Russian with you. I want to play hockey with you for a long, long time, and then I want to retire and adopt babies with you, if that's what you want. I want us to be together, G, not because we’re bonded, but because we chose each other, and we worked hard, and we built a life for ourselves.” 

Zhenya’s eyes were wet. He had never heard Sid speak like this. “Sid,” he said, a little helplessly, hardly sure of what he was trying to say. “You can’t.”

“I can,” Sid said. “And I will, if you ask me to. If you still want me to.” 

Zhenya made a noise in his throat: a laugh, or a choked little sob. “Yes,” he said. “Sid, I want. I want try, you know? Maybe it’s not good, maybe it’s too hard. But we try. We take slow, and we try.” 

Sid was beaming at him. He squeezed Zhenya’s hands in his.

“And you learn Russian.” Zhenya was sniffling a little now. “It’s too hard, have big feeling in English always.” 

“Yeah, well,” Sid said. “You’re the one who always gets bored of teaching me.”

It was a familiar argument. Zhenya rolled his eyes. “Get real teacher, not hockey player. I already work hard, teach you all swear words.” 

“Fine,” Sid said, laughing. He was still on his knees, looking up at Zhenya, and his face felt like summer, like all of Zhenya’s favorite places: bright and warm and full of hope. He felt his heart lift a little in response, calling out to Sid’s across the space between them. Something in him began to thaw. 

“I know we’re taking it slow,” Sid said. “But I really want to kiss you.” 

“Hmm,” Zhenya said, pretending to consider it. “‘Maybe can kiss little bit. Like tryout.” 

“Oh yeah?” Sid said, grinning. He shifted up on his knees, sliding his hands up Zhenya’s thighs. “You gonna cut me from the team if it’s no good?” 

But it was good. Sid’s mouth was soft and lush, and he kissed Zhenya slow and so sweet, like they had all the time in the world to do it. Zhenya cradled Sid’s face in his hands, and kissed him back, kissing him and kissing him, until Sid was smiling too much to go on. 

He leaned his forehead against Sid’s. He closed his eyes. 

“Geno,” Sid said, and then softly, like a promise: “Zhenya.”

**Author's Note:**

> please forgive me the unbearable fluff at the end: it is late, and the deadline is here, and ok so SUE ME, I want a soft ending for sid and geno in this verse. 
> 
> comments are so appreciated & so treasured, no matter how brief. you can also talk to me on [tumblr](http://ticklefighthockey.tumblr.com). 
> 
> *
> 
> content warnings: 
> 
> — a character in this fic experiences a lot of complicated and often painful feelings around gender norms, social expectations for relationships, infertility, and a medical condition that strongly affects his gendered self-perception. he also internalizes & uses ableist rhetoric to describe his body and its perceived shortcomings. not all of this is directly confronted or dealt with in the fic.  
> — a character experiences a scary medical event (a TIA) requiring an emergency room visit, though everything turns out okay and the effects are not permanent.  
> — this fic mentions sid's current IRL partner as an ex. no shade meant to the real kathy! I tried writing her with a different name but it just felt confusing.


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